Lesson video

Hello, fine and wise and noble theologians.

Thank you for joining me for another, religious education lesson.

My name is Mr. Green and today we are going to learn all about pacifism together.

Now before we do that, please make sure you have four things with you.

They are a pen, a different colour pen, some paper to work on, and of course, your theology brains.

If you need to pause the video to go and get any of those things, please do that for me now.

So we are going to look at pacifism together today and to start off with we're going to get a nice definition of pacifism then we going to give some examples of how people have responded to injustice.

Some of those will be pacifist examples, some of them won't be and then we're going to explain the work of a Christian and an Islamic pacifist organisation.

So the three people we are going to look at together are, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mairead Corrigan, and Muhammad.

Before we do that, let's get a nice definition of pacifism.

So by pacifism, what we mean is the belief that violence of any kind is unjustifiable, and therefore, all disputes should be settled by peaceful means.

I'd like you to do two things with this information, please.

The first thing I'd like you to do, is to write out the definition of pacifism that you can see on your screens there.

And the second thing I'd like you to do, is explain why from the previous work we've done, in this unit on the Oak National Academy, why may we reasonably expect to associate pacifism more close with Christianity rather than Islam.

But I'd like you to use the pink text as a hint, think about the teachings of Jesus and how they can be interpreted and the example of Muhammad particularly in his struggle to establish Islam.

So please pause the video now and have a go at those tasks, And then join me for some feedback.

So let's see how we got on.

So hopefully you were able to identify that Jesus' teachings seem to oppose violence.

His teachings can be interpreted in a way that would imply violence is never justifiable.

For example, Jesus said two things, we are hopefully quite familiar with now, "If anyone slaps you on your right cheek, "let him slap you on your left cheek too".

And he also said, "Love your enemies "and pray for those who persecute you".

And some Christians would interpret those teachings as being in support of pacifism.

In Jesus' instructions here to show love to enemies and if someone slaps you on your right cheek, don't retaliate let them stop you on your left cheek too.

Jesus teachings seen here to be saying, never respond with violence.

Of course there are also Christians that disagree with that and many Christians will think, oh, a quite of this is just worthy for example, think there are some occasions where it is justifiable to use force.

Now when we compare the teachings of Jesus with the example of Muhammad, we might then get an understanding as to why it might be somewhat easier to link pacifism to Christian teaching than it is to the example of Muhammad.

Because in the example of Muhammad, we know that Muhammad was really keen not to use violence.

In fact, he's idea before this was pacifism.

But there was a conflict with the Meccans.

As hard as he tried to respond with peace, not least by disappearing from Mecca and going to Yathrib which then became renamed Medina, he only used violence as a last resort.

So Muhammad, although keen not to use violence, had to resolve his dispute with the Meccans with force as a last resort.

And that example shows Muslims that they need to be prepared to use force if necessary to defend the faith.

Though as I said a moment ago, it is also true to say that many Christians would also agree with the use of force as a last resort, when there is a just cause for it.

So please pause the video and just check you have all that information in your answers.

And then once you've checked your lovely theology work and made it even better with some of those ideas, you can unpause the video and join me for some more lovely work.

So we are going to start now by having a look at the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his story comes from the Second World War, the beginning of the Second World War and indeed before he was a pacifist.

Remember, a pacifist is someone who believes the use of violence can never be justified, and Bonhoeffer was a Protestant minister, and understandably, he strongly opposed, the Nazis policies on racism and was deeply concerned about the fate of those groups which they seeked to persecute.

And years before the Second World War, Bonhoeffer wrote essays expressing his concerns and stating that he believed the church would strongly oppose, the policies of their National Socialist Party, on Christian grounds, they should be motivated to show a stronger position on the basis of their beliefs.

And he was reminding church leaders really clearly that they need to work to challenge injustice, and they have an obligation he thought to help those who were being persecuted, regardless of their faith.

Sadly, his outspoken views actually led him to being quite an isolated figure, within the church at the time.

And being really disturbed by the Nazi policies he tried to help Jewish people suffering during the Holocaust by doing something really dangerous and would have put himself at great personal danger.

He attempted and helped some German Jews to smuggle an escape out of Germany.

And this was called Operation Seven.

Essentially, it was a plan to get Jewish people, under threat out of Germany.

And he then believed ultimately, pacifism was not going to work against Hitler.

And he became involved in a plan to kill Hitler.

And that's where we see him putting his pacifist beliefs to one side.

He's acknowledged here, look this is an extreme situation.

It can't be resolved with peace, something violent needs to happen in order to get peace and to get justice.

And this July plot that he was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler was ultimately discovered, and Bonhoeffer and the other people responsible for the plot were executed by the Nazis.

So let's just remind ourselves of some of the key points of Dietrich Bonhoeffer stories at the beginning and before Second World War, he was a pacifist.

He tried to help Jewish people suffering, during the Holocaust by smuggling them out of Germany with fake documents.

He then believed that pacifism was not going to work against Hitler.

And he then became involved in a plot to kill Hitler.

And his plot was discovered, and he was subsequently executed by the Nazis.

But he has a famous saying which we'll focus on in a moment.

"There is no way to peace along the way to safety".

When we think about that it's got a clear destination mind, hasn't it? Safety, sometimes if you want a just and safe society, what Bonhoeffer saying is, you can't always take a route to that place of justice and safety via peaceful means.

Ideally, of course, we would get that by a peaceful means but there are some occasions, like the situation he found himself confronted with where the route to peace, safety, justice is not going to be a peaceful one in itself.

So I'd like you now please to pause your videos and you can see on your screens, four statements about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I want you to read the statement, identify whether the statement is either true or false.

If it's true, please write the word true followed by the statement, if it's false, write the word false, followed by a correction.

Please pause the video now and have a go at that for me.

Alright, let's do some feedback then, so you can see the first one was true.

And the next three were false.

So hopefully you have something similar to this written in your work.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pacifist at the start of the Second World War.

And then so he helped smuggle Jewish people out of Germany.

Then saying he then believed peaceful action was not going to work so became involved in a plan to kill Hitler, and then stating that his plan was discovered, and he was executed.

So pause the video now, check that you've got all those key details, down in your work so that your theology is as amazing as it can be.

And then join me for some more thinking, about Dietrich Bonhoeffer once you've done that.

Right, so two more things to do with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I'd like you please, to write out the quote and explain it.

"There's no way to piece along the way to safety", and then look at the three options, which are potentially trying to explain his view and his actions, I want you to look at those and identify which one you think best describes his views and actions, and explain, why you think it best describes his views and his actions.

So please pause the video now, then join me for some feedback in just a moment.

Excellent, good work.

So let's see, "There's no way to peace along the way to safety".

What this means, what Bonhoeffer is saying here is, if you want to establish a safe and just society, sometimes it might not be able to do this in a peaceful way.

And in those circumstances, violent action is justified because you're aiming for justice and safety.

And that has to be the priority.

And the option which best describes his view, I hope you'll agree is that look, in an ideal world pacifism would work.

However, there are circumstances where violent action is needed, and we can see that's what Bonhoeffer thought because initially, he was a pacifist, wasn't he? And then he believed that given the circumstances, violent action was the only possible way to restore justice given the grotesque injustice, he witnessed before him.

So again, please pause the video, check your work, you can see on your screens there, and then join me for some more lovely theology.

So we're now going to look at another interesting story.

And this story is about Mairead Corrigan and Mairead grew up in Northern Ireland during something that's known as The Troubles and The Troubles is a conflict between nationalists and unionists in Northern Ireland.

And in simple terms, the unionists who mainly identified as Protestants wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, I.

e.

united to hence the word unionists.

And the nationalists who were mainly Catholic, wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and instead form a United Ireland.

The conflict spans across three decades on the late 1960s, until the Good Friday Agreement, which was established in 1998.

Now in 1976, Mairead Corrigan's sister lost three children, in a really traumatic incident drawing and linked to The Troubles.

They were killed after they were run over by a car, which was being driven by a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

The driver was a fugitive who had just been shot by British troops, whilst attempting to escape.

Of course, it'll be really easy to imagine here, Mairead being bitter and wanting revenge and forming an entrenched view on one side of this conflict.

But that's not how she responded.

Now, Betty Williams actually witnessed the incident and she contacted Mairead and they agreed to start a peace movement.

And the peace movement they started, was initially called Women For Peace, and they worked really hard to develop nonviolent strategies to end this conflict.

And they brought together huge crowds, literally thousands of people, and the aim of that was to form marching groups to protest against the violence and demonstrate that there were literally thousands of people, large numbers of people on both sides of the conflict that actually really wanted to work for peace in a way that was itself peaceful, and their work was terrific.

It was actually internationally recognised as they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, which is an astonishing accolade to receive.

Let us just recap some of the key points of Mairead story.

Grew up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

In 1976, her sister tragically lost three children, in a traumatic incident during The Troubles.

Betty Williams who saw the incident contacted Mairead and they agreed to start that peace movement.

They worked to find peaceful resolutions to The Troubles and did so by founding an organisation that was initially called Women For Peace.

And in 1976, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

And Mairead Corrigan also has a really thoughtful statement for us to think about, some really wise words.

She said, "If we want to reap the harvest of peace "and justice in the future, "then we have to sow the seeds of nonviolence here, "and now in the present".

And let's think about what that means right, If I want an apple tree in the future, I've got to plant apple seeds now, haven't I? There needs to be like for like.

Likewise, if I want peace and reconciliation in the future, then the actions now perhaps need to be peaceful ones.

So peace will bring about peace, just like apple seeds will bring about apples.

So what I'd like you to do now, is the same sort of activity we just did for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so again you can see four statements on your screen, either true or false.

So identify for me please whether they are true or false.

If it's true, write the word true followed by the statement and if it's false, write the word false followed by correction.

Please pause the video now and have a go at that and then join me for some feedback once you have done it.

Good work, let's see how we got on them.

So, the first one was false, so that needed correcting.

Hopefully you managed to correct it by saying Mairead's sister lost three children, in an incident during The Troubles.

The next two are true, so hopefully you've got noted down that Mairead responded to violence positively and by positively there, I mean non violently.

Mairead work for peace, work sorry, Mairead worked for peace with peaceful methods starting Women For Peace with Betty Williams. And Mairead's work was recognised, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976.

So if you need to pause the video to check and correct your work, please do that for me now, and then join me for some more hard thinking about Mairead's story.

So, here we can see Mairead's quote, "If we want to reap the harvest of peace "and justice in the future, we'll have to sow the seeds "of nonviolence here and now in the present".

Remember when I explained that to you a moment ago, I used the example of apple seeds producing apple trees.

Likewise, if you want a peaceful future, perhaps our actions need to be peaceful in resolving disagreement and resolving conflict.

So I'd like you please to copy out and explain what that quote means.

And then again, you've got the same three bullet points that I gave you for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Explain which of those best describes Mairead's views and explain why.

Please pause the video now for me.

And then john for some feedback in just a moment.

Excellent, some top quality theology being achieved today.

So let's see how you got on there.

So hopefully, when you were explaining that quotation, you managed to say look, if you want peaceful outcomes, you must go about that in a peaceful manner.

Just as if you want to grow an apple tree, you must plant apple seeds.

And the description which best matched Mairead story was, violence can never be justified.

In order to establish peace, you must only use peace.

And we can see that in history because despite experiencing that personal trauma during The Troubles, Mairead was herself determined to work for peaceful resolution, using just peaceful means.

And now we get on to the story of Muhammad.

Now, when we're looking at the story of Muhammad, again, we're looking at the Battle of Badr and I really hope that you are now somewhat familiar and confident in the story of Muhammad and the Battle of Badr.

But nonetheless, let's remind ourselves of the key details anyway.

Remember, Muhammad lived in a city called Mecca, which is where the Kabah was, and is the first house of God.

However, people were using the Kabah to worship idols which Muhammad was really upset about because he knew and understood that the Kabah was for worshipping Allah and Allah alone.

And when Muhammad was upset by this, he would go to a cave and think about these things.

And when he was in the cave, it was that time when the angel Jibril came and instructed him to read and reveal to him the words that then became the Quran, the Holy Book of Islam, which is the direct word of Allah.

And when he went about preaching this message openly to the Meccans, the Meccans were really angry.

His message was challenging to the Meccans and their way of life.

For what Muhammad was saying was true, they needed to change.

Now, they met that message with confrontation and anger and threatened Muhammad and his followers.

And Muhammad ultimately tried to avoid any conflict.

He, you know, was living a peaceful life and wanted to live a peaceful life and did not under any circumstances, want to use violence.

So he fled to his dream and started a community there, renaming the city Medina, meaning city of the Prophet.

But the Meccans were still really unhappy and were continuing to challenge Muhammad.

Muhammad remained really reluctant to fight.

He did not want to use violence.

We can tell this because when he was threatened in Mecca, obviously he fled, didn't he? So they could live in peace rather than engage in a battle.

However, the threat of the Meccans persisted, it did not go away.

And Muhammad realised that in order to protect himself, his followers and the faith he was going to have to fight back.

And in 624, the tribes in Mecca, began preparing an attack on Medina, putting an army together so that they could deal with the threat of Muhammad once and for all.

Muhammad heard of this and marched with his army to Badr and in the battle, Muhammad's army won, killing only a very small number of the opposition forces and they took whoever they could captive, rather than killing them where that was possible.

Then they treated these prisoners well, promising to release them with trials to educate them to read and to write.

So let's just remind ourselves of the key details.

I know that story, I've heard it in a bit more detail.

So after Muhammad fled Mecca, he and his followers settled in Yathrib, which then became Medina, meaning city of the Prophet.

The threat of the Meccans didn't subside, though they continued to threaten.

Eventually, Muhammad had to use force to defend himself, his followers and the faith.

Not least because the Meccans were planning and preparing an attack.

So Muhammad took his followers to Badr for a battle with the Meccans.

Muhammad and his army won.

They were very careful though only to use proportionate force.

And we can use a quote from the Quran here.

"Fight for the cause of God, against those who fight you, "but do not transgress".

Remember the cause of God and we've looked at this in other lessons in this unit, on the Oak National Academy is, self defence, defending the faith.

And then that word transgress means, breaking rules.

So that's saying, look, you can fight for God to defend the faith, but you must not break the rules.

And the rules, the rules strategy had that struggle to protect the faith, which can involve the use of force, both things to limit the loss of human life and the natural environment.

For example, no killing children, no killing women, no killing the elderly, not harming trees, not burning trees.

And we can see those rules being enacted and modelled by Muhammad and his followers here in the Battle of Badr.

So, let's pause now, and let's do some thinking about that story that we've just heard again.

So you've got four statements about the Battle of Badr and Muhammad, identify whether true or false.

If they're true, please just write the word true down, followed by the statement, if they are false, write word false, written by a correction of the statement.

Once you've done that fantastic theology, please join me for some feedback.

Fantastic, let's do some feedback then.

So hopefully you noted down that the first one was true.

Muhammad did indeed flee from Mecca.

Next one was false, so hopefully you noted down that Muhammad attempted to avoid conflict with the Meccans.

The third one was also false.

A battle took place between Muhammad's followers and the Meccans in Badr.

And the fourth one was false too, so hopefully you've noted down, something along the lines of this.

Muhammad and his army acted proportionally, capturing enemies where they could and offering to release them if they would receive an education.

So please pause the video now and check your work against the answer you can see on your screen and make any corrections, amendments or additions that will improve your fantastic theology.

Right, now let's have a look at the saying of the Quran.

And also which of those descriptions, best fits the actions of Muhammad? So remember, the Quran says, "Fight for the cause of God against those who fight you "but do not transgress".

Then we've got the three options again, what I'd like you to do is identify and explain which position, best describes Muhammad's views and actions and explain why.

So please pause the video now and have a go at that and then join me for feedback in a moment.

Well done, so hopefully you have managed to write down something like this in relation to that quotations sometimes it may be necessary to use force in order to defend the faith from aggression.

If you do use force, you must follow rules for conflict, and that includes making sure any force is proportionate.

And then for the second bit, look in an ideal world pacifism would work, however, there are circumstances where violent action is needed.

Muhammad attempted didn't he to solve the dispute, without using violence, remember he tried to flee Mecca or did flee Mecca to try and get away from the aggression and avoid the need for a conflict.

However, it became apparent that in order to defend himself, his followers and the faith he would need to use limited force.

So again, please pause the video, check your lovely work against, the answer you can see on screen and use that as an opportunity to correct, amend or improve.

So the next thing we're going to do is have a look at some peace keeping organisations and you can see from looking at your screen that there are two we're going to look at, a Christian one, The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, and an Islamic one, The Muslim Peace Fellowship.

So let's look at the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship together.

Now the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship is a Christian group, linked to the Anglican Church, you can tell from the name there, and they have around 1400 members in over 40 countries, but most of their members are from the UK.

They believe that peace and justice, should be brought about through nonviolent means.

As a Christian group, they hold three main pacifist beliefs.

Firstly, they would argue that Jesus's teachings cannot be used to support violence.

And we saw that early didn't we, the start of the lesson.

That saying love your enemies and also turn the other cheek.

They don't seem to support violence, they seem to suggest non violent responses.

They also claim that the Christian church, should never support or justify war.

And we might think there as well might we, look war brings about damage.

It takes life, It causes poverty, it destroys the natural world.

And then we think about you know, the qualities of God, qualities of God are love, peace, justice.

And it seems strange, doesn't it therefore, for church, a group of people coming together to worship God would then support a war which brings about the opposite, we might say to the qualities of God and the ideals that Christians might hope to establish.

And thirdly, they say look, Christian witness and by that we mean promoting and sharing the Christian faith, or to include opposing war rather than supporting war.

And the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship founded, the Week of Prayer for World Peace in 1974.

And they continue to have really close ties with it.

In addition, they produce lots of information, producing regular newsletters, organising and computing to special peace related events and religious services, essentially working really hard to raise awareness of the issue of pacifism, so that support for it can grow.

And all members of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship have to undertake a certain pledge.

And the pledge says, we believe that as Christians, we are called to follow the way of Jesus in loving our enemies, and becoming peacemakers.

We work to transform the Anglican Communion that's members of worldwide Anglican churches and the world to overcome those factors that lead to war within and between nations.

Let's just remind ourselves some of the key things we've said there.

1400 members in 40 countries but mostly from the UK.

Believes peace and justice should be brought about through non violent means.

It believes that Jesus's teachings don't support violence.

Remember, love your enemies, pray for those that persecute you, turn the other cheek, blessed are the peacemakers.

The Christian church should never support war.

And living the Christian faith should include, opposing the waging or justification of war.

They founded the Week of Prayer for World Peace in 1974.

And they worked to raise awareness of pacifism through things like newsletters, and organising special peace related events.

So what I would like you to do please, is summarise information about, the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship that you can see on your screen there and then explain how Jesus's words, "Love your enemies", can be used to support its work.

So please pause the video now and have a go at that and then join me for some feedback in just a moment.

Terrific work, let's see how we got on them.

So, hopefully you mentioned that the APF believes violence can never be justified as it goes against Jesus' this teachings.

The church should not support war.

Christians should oppose war.

They found that the Week of Prayer for World Peace to raise awareness of pacifism.

And then linking that quotation with your enemies.

How do we do that? Well, we can say, look, the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, puts that quotation, "Are you loving our enemies" into practise by encouraging people to find peaceful resolution they are in conflict with, rather than violent ones and establishing peaceful resolutions seeking to demonstrate love to their enemies.

So please pause the video now to check your fantastic work and make any corrections improvements or amendments that are needed.

So let's turn our attention now to the Muslim Peace Fellowship.

Now the Muslim Peace Fellowship, is a gathering of peace and justice orientated Muslims of all backgrounds who are devoted to the theory and the practise of Islamic non violence.

They have four main objectives and their objectives are firstly, to work against injustice and peace in themselves, their families, their communities and throughout the world.

To form the commitment to peace on behalf of all Muslims. Thirdly, to explore and deepen people's understandings of Islamic teachings about peace and non violence.

We know in the Quran, there is a teaching that mandates Muslims to incline towards peace.

And fourthly, to develop faithful and authentic nonviolent strategies to maintain peace and justice in the world.

And similarly to the organisation we've just looked at, the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, they too will be involved in lots of conferences, and produce lots of publications to try and achieve their aims and raise awareness of their mission.

So let's just recap that then.

A gathering of Muslims who are dedicated to the practise of Islamic non violence.

The objectives include, working against injustice and for peace for themselves, our communities, and the world.

Affirm the commitment to peace on behalf of all Muslims. Helping people understand Islamic teachings on peace and non violence.

Developing non violence strategies to maintain peace and justice.

And the organisation hold lots of conferences and publishes materials to try and achieve those aims. So time for you now to do a little bit of work for me, please, so can you please summarise information, about the Muslim Peace Fellowship that you can see on your screens, and then explain how that teaching that I referred to during the explanation, If they incline to peace and incline towards it, can be used to support their work? So please pause the video now and have it go up for me.

Excellent, let's see how you got on them.

So, the Muslim Peace Fellowship is dedicated to non violence.

It works against injustice and peace.

Affirms a commitment to peace for all Muslims. Promotes Islamic teachings on non violence and develops nonviolent strategies to maintain peace and justice.

And that quotation, if they inclined towards peace, then incline to it, demonstrates in Islam that look, peace is the ideal, that peace is the ideal that should be pursued above all other options and should never be deviated from.

So please just pause the video again.

Check your lovely theology against the answer you can see on the screen and use that as an opportunity to add, improve or even just put some lovely ticks to confirm your work is all there and correct.

Excellent work, well done today.

Please make sure you remember to attempt the summary quiz to check you can recall all that key information, we learnt about, remember we learnt that three case studies.

Looked at Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mairead Corrigan, and Muhammad.

And then we looked at two organisations, the Muslim Peace Fellowship, and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship.

There's lots of information we've covered today.

So please do make sure you go on to that summary quiz to check you can recall that key information.

If you wish to share your amazing theology work with the Oak National Academy, please do so by asking your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, using the information you can see on your screens now.

Thank you very much for joining me again.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

I hope you've learned a lot.

And I hope very much to see you again soon.

Goodbye.