From a thoughtful friend:

As for the Hebrew Bible... it seems to me that the Hebrew Bible is a record of a group of people working out what God is like through their various experiences, and that this culminates in Jesus Christ who is the fullest revelation of God...in actual fact for a civilisation of their time, the Hebrews were remarkably peaceful. There are lots of things in the Hebrew Bible that point to this:

* The Hebrews are told constantly not to put their trust in military might and strength, but to trust in God. It was a statement of faith to go into battle with less (sometimes dramatically less) firepower than your enemy.

* Commandments such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" were actually designed to limit violence rather than encouraging it...what tended to happen then (as now) was that violence and the resulting counterviolence would escalate dramatically - you take my eye, I'll take your life, you kill my family in retaliation, my family kills your tribe, etc.

* S Mark Heim has done some great work on the Hebrew Bible context in his book Saved From Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross. It's largely based on Rene Girard's theory of mimetic violence, but basically it singles out the Christian scriptures as one of the few ancient writings not to mythologize violence - more than that, often telling the stories from the perspective of the victim rather than the oppressor (the Psalms are full of it, as is Job). This undermines the mechanisms by which we justify committing violence.

But ultimately even Jesus reinterprets these and says in Mt 5:38-39 "you've heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say to you do not [antistenai - means to resist violently or meet in battle] an evildoer." So even that rough approximation of justice that we understand being tit for tat is no longer an ethic Christians can hold to. Walter Wink expounds the context of this passage well (http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/Wink_3707.htm) revealing that it's not about being a passive doormat, but creative, positive action that confronts the oppressor with their oppression and invites them to change. And then in 5:43-45 "you've heard it said that you should love your neighbour and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you *so that you may be children of your Father in heaven*; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." So Jesus is not just saying do this because I'm telling you to - he's saying love your enemies because God loves God's enemies. I don't see this qualified in any way. He doesn't say "only under these 3 circumstances" or "do this until you've had enough" - in fact, we're told to forgive 70x7 (until it's complete). This is the kind of relentless love God shows us, who have made ourselves by sin enemies of God. So this is the kind of relentless love we are to show our enemies. Only then can we be called children of God, chips off the old block.

So yes, I think [non-violence] is the only answer. But then I'm a very imperfect example of it. I strive for this, but I will never arrive in my lifetime. So I'm grateful that God is infinitely forgiving.

Again, nonviolence is not simply "asking people to stop". Restorative justice is making great leaps forward in nonviolently confronting perpetrators with the consequences of their actions, and restoring them to relationship with the victims of their crimes instead of merely sending them to crime school (prison). This is the Kingdom in our midst! These initiatives are being birthed and need to be encouraged.

Lastly, whenever I am tempted to think that this way of nonviolence is foolish or weak, I remember what Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians (1:17-29):

17. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.18. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." 20. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23. but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24. but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. 26. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29. so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

Of course the cross looks like a terribly weak and foolish way to gain victory! The nonviolent way always looks weak and foolish to a world obsessed with power and so-called cleverness. And yet this is what I find time and time again - that what looks like the weak way is actually the strong way. What looks like foolishness is actually staggeringly brilliant. But it's not the world's way of doing things.