Is pacifism relevant in the American Empire?

Ted Grimsrud—September 2, 2025

For the past fifty years, it seems, I have lived in increasing despair as an idealistic citizen of the United States. I have tried to think my way through what seems to be an irresolvable and terminal problem. As a child, I accepted that the US was a model society, guided by God to be a force for freedom and democracy in the world. This message formed a core part of my identity. Increased knowledge disabused my idealistic view of the US. I reached adulthood at the same time our military withdrew from Vietnam amidst many revelations of extraordinary injustices.

However, my idealism about freedom and democracy did not diminish. I turned my focus from the American nation to Christian communities. As I turned from blank-check nationalism (the willingness unquestioningly to let the state turn us toward war—what I call “warism”), I turned toward a strand of Christianity that understood the message of Jesus to be central for our social ethics. In the nearly half-century since those two decisive turns, I have struggled endlessly with a central dilemma. How do I live as an American citizen in the context of learning evermore of the injustices and idolatrous violence of the American Empire? I have developed a strong critique of this Empire based on Christian theology and a pacifist reading of the Bible. However, such work has placed me in the midst of another wrenching dilemma. I draw heavily on the convictions of a religion that is itself deeply implicated in the dynamics of the Empire.

I do not write in hopes of actually resolving these dilemmas. In offering a progress report, I mainly want to continue the struggle. I hope for more conversation on the issues I raise. I will present the case for Christian pacifism as a lens through which to view the Empire and the Christian faith. How does that make sense?

Working definitions

What do I mean by “pacifism”? What do I mean by “American Empire”?

Pacifism. By “pacifism” I mean the conviction that love matters more than anything else as a guide for our social relationships. This love extends to all others (human beings and other creatures). No loyalty or value can justify treating anyone without love. Of course, actual life in all its complexity sometimes makes the choices to love difficult, perhaps even in practice at times impossible. However, pacifist convictions provide the touchstone for discerning how to navigate the complexities, supplying the core ideal that shapes that discernment process. One obvious implication when we affirm pacifism as a core conviction is to refuse to participate in or support the preparation for warfare. A commitment to pacifism places one in a position of deep tension with one’s own nation when that nation turns toward war and prepares for war.

Christian pacifism. When I add the qualifier “Christian” to my use of “pacifism,” I describe the tradition that I draw upon. Christian convictions about the message of Jesus and the overall message of the Bible and about the fundamental reality of love in the world as the expression of the character and will of God are central to my story.

However, I offer two qualifications. First, I believe that my Christian convictions have to do with convictions that are available through other traditions and frameworks. I do not mean to imply that other paths to pacifist convictions are not valid. I seek positive connections with other paths, not barriers. Second, I recognize that overall, during the past 2,000 years, Christianity has been a warring religion. We see that in the horrors of the Crusades and other medieval “holy wars,” in the Christian wars in Europe during the 16^th century triggered by the Protestant Reformation, in the unprecedented total wars of the 20^th century that emerged from Europe’s “Christian civilization,” and in the close link between Christianity and the American Empire.

Because of this warring character of Christianity, I refuse to be triumphalist in posing Christian pacifism as an antidote to empire as a way of life. What I write emerges out of my deep discouragement about the future of the US, about the world, and about the Christian faith. I persist, though, in trying to argue for a reading of Christianity and a reading of the American situation that offers resources to help us imagine a different, peaceable way.

American Empire. I use “empire” in a fairly general sense when I discuss the “American Empire.” I have in mind how the US pursues ways to dominate people outside its borders. It began as an outpost of the British Empire, as the colonists sought to displace the people already living in North America. The US spread across the North American continent was an imperial exercise of conquering indigenous nations. By 1900, the US Empire encompassed most of North America. Then the US expanded its imperial dominance outside of the continental boundaries of the nation—marked at first by military conquest of Spanish territories.

A key accelerating point came with World War II. At war’s end, the US committed itself to global dominance and stood alone as an economic power above all the other major powers, each of which had suffered major damage in the war. US leaders chose to expand their military power and spread their economic forces. American foreign policy after World War II sought to sustain a unipolar world with the US at the top. This quest shaped how the US related both to presumed enemies such as the Soviet Union and supposed allies such as the nations of Western Europe along with the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

The US Empire may be defined by this quest for unipolar dominance. Virtually every foreign policy event since 1945 has had to do with that quest. Wars and preparation for wars dominate the US federal government, popular culture, and American’s sense of national identity. US imperialism stands as the nation’s defining characteristic. As a consequence, Christian pacifism, as I define it, exists in antithetical opposition to the American Empire. I understand my life as a Christian pacifist in the American Empire in light of that opposition.

Seeing the American Empire with pacifist eyes

I see pacifism as an interpretive framework, a set of convictions, and a stance from outside of power more than as a philosophy of governance. As a pacifist, I am not particularly interested in questions of how I would lead the nation as a pacifist. However, I do not think that to refuse to try to look at the world through the eyes of the power elite makes pacifism irrelevant. To the contrary, the power elite have driven this country, and hence the rest of the world itself, to the brink of self-destruction. I believe that only by drawing on the insights of Christian pacifism (and similar creative critical perspectives) will we be able to imagine a viable future.

In practice, often pacifists discern problems with the Empire that others do not perceive. The analysis that I offer comes from a set of values that puts the wellbeing of all people and of nature above the sense of national self-interest pursued by people in power. A vital commitment to the wellbeing of all provides a powerful antidote to the manipulations of the power elite. Those manipulations shape public opinion in ways that undermine the general population’s ability to discern how the policies of the elite do not serve public good. Non-pacifists certainly can and do make similar critiques as pacifists (the critiques, after all, draw on fully accessible and commonsense values, convictions, and information). I have no interest in any kind of exclusivist agenda. However, too often non-pacifists do not seem to perceive the problems.

I will focus on how we perceive the American Empire—not so much on making an argument for a different kind of nation-state. I will offer an angle of vision for a resisting minority based on values that can be true for everyone. Another way to state my agenda is to say that I seek to develop an interpretive framework to replace what I see to be the blank check nationalism that dominates in the US across class, race, gender, and political party lines.

Who am I and what is my context?

I am a citizen of the United States, born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1954. My mother’s family has roots on both of her parents’ sides in colonial America. My father’s ancestors immigrated from Norway in the middle part of the 19^th century. While from time to time various of my ancestors joined the military, there is not a strong identification with the military in my family—no career soldiers as far as a I know among my ancestors. However, there is also no known history of conscientious objection to war.

My father enlisted in the US Army in the months prior to the draft’s start in 1941. He ended up stationed in eastern Oregon for a short time following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He then was sent to the South Pacific and served in combat for several years. While he was in Oregon, he met my mother who at the time was a college student. She enlisted and served in the Army as a recruiter during the war. As they wrote to each other, they decided they would like to spend their lives together and got married shortly before the war ended.

My parents, so far as I know, never doubted the validity of their service nor of the American engagement in World War II. Yet, they rarely spoke about either the war or their patriotism. My father only once ever talked with me about what it was like for him to be in the military (and only then in general terms about how it was a good experience when he encouraged me to consider applying to one of the military academies; he said nothing about the actual experience of combat). From them, I received a subtle socialization into uncritical nationalism.

As a young adult, I turned from that uncritical nationalism. Eventually, I became a Mennonite pastor and a college professor self-identified as a peace theologian. The convictions I gained in my early twenties only broadened and deepened in the years since the mid-1970s. So, I write from the perspective of one who affirms a peace-oriented theology with deep skepticism about the American project.

I also acknowledge that I have to a degree become a despairing post-Christian. I do not despair of the truth of the gospel of peace I advocate. I do not doubt its intellectual validity and coherence. My despair stems rather from the sense that this gospel of peace will not be enough to stem the spiral toward death in my country. Even more so, this gospel of peace does not seem to be enough to shape the convictions and practices of the large majority of professing Christians in the US. I use the term “post-Christian” for my current convictions having in mind, actually, the ways that Christian traditions have turned against the biblical story and the message of Jesus.

I have jokingly referred to myself as “a former Mennonite wannabe” for similar reasons. I do not reject the core convictions of Anabaptism and the Mennonite tradition. Rather, I have doubts about the current expression of them. Trying to become a “Mennonite” nearly fifty years ago proved to be a complicated endeavor for me. I do still identify with the Anabaptist tradition and in many ways still identify as a Mennonite. However, it is an ambivalent relationship. I do not offer a proposal to renew the church. I tend to believe that Christianity as it is currently embodied in the US (including the Mennonite embodiment) does not provide a safe haven for faithfulness in a broken world. Christianity as practiced (and as presented theologically in its various mainstream expressions) may not be part of our desperately needed solution so much as part of the problem.

So, what I have to offer is a modest effort: “hopefulness without hope.” By that, I have in mind an affirmation of the inherent meaning of life and of the healing possibilities of love. We are given a path that promises life—even if it does not realistically offer a happy resolution to the American spiral of death.

[This is the first of a long series of blog posts, “A Christian pacifist in the American Empire” (this link takes you to the series homepage). The second post in the series, “Blank check nationalism?” may be found by clicking on this link.]