The question cannot be avoided: if injustice is sustained by force, may it ever be answered by force?

Christian faith neither glorifies violence nor assumes evil evaporates under persuasion. The New Testament commands personal non-retaliation. It does not command governments to abandon restraint. Confusing these two categories has produced both moral paralysis and reckless zeal.

Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount address the disciple as a private person. “Turn the other cheek” speaks to the posture of the believer before personal offense. It is a renunciation of vengeance. It is not a blueprint for civil order.

By contrast, Romans 13 describes governing authority as bearing the sword to restrain wrongdoing. The sword represents coercive capacity. Without it, law collapses into suggestion. A state that refuses to restrain violence does not become righteous; it becomes negligent.

History makes this distinction painfully clear.

When Nazi Germany expanded across Europe, the regime was not persuaded into retreat. The liberation of concentration camps did not occur through moral appeal alone. The defeat of the Third Reich required organized force. One may rightly lament the devastation of war while also acknowledging that failure to confront such aggression would have meant the entrenchment of industrialized evil.

The distinction, therefore, is structural:

• Personal ethics: Christians renounce vengeance.
• Public authority: Governments restrain evil to preserve order.

When these are collapsed into one rule, distortion follows. If the state adopts absolute non-violence, the violent rule. If the church adopts coercion as its mission, it ceases to be the church.

Non-violence, properly understood, is a witness. The American Civil Rights Movement provides a powerful example. Through disciplined non-violent resistance, activists exposed injustice and appealed to the conscience of a nation. Their refusal to retaliate revealed the moral bankruptcy of segregation. Non-violence, in that context, was strategic moral clarity.

When ISIS swept across parts of Iraq and Syria, enslaving minorities and executing dissenters, appeals alone did not halt the violence. Local populations—particularly Yazidis and certain Christian communities—faced extermination. In such cases, the use of force by regional and international actors aimed at preventing massacres. Protection of the vulnerable is morally distinct from aggression.

Aggression seeks control.
Protection seeks restoration of order.

The two may outwardly resemble each other, but they differ in aim and intention.

Scripture is sober about this. In the Old Testament, God restrains violent empires through other powers. In the New Testament, the state retains authority to punish wrongdoing. Nowhere is violence romanticized. It is always tragic, always costly, always evidence that the world is disordered.

Veterans of modern conflicts often testify to the moral weight of force. Even when actions are justified, they are rarely clean. Force reshapes the one who uses it. It carries moral injury and grief. A Christian who serves in the military or law enforcement must understand this gravity. To wield coercive power is to enter a realm of profound responsibility.

Treating all force as immoral is very dangerous. Such a view abandons the vulnerable. Refusing to defend the innocent permits harm.

The moral framework, then, must include guardrails:

1. Just cause — Force restrains grave injustice, not expands influence.
2. Right intention — The aim is restoration of order, not humiliation or domination.
3. Last resort — Non-coercive means are exhausted first.
4. Proportional restraint — Force is limited to what is necessary.

These principles do not guarantee clean outcomes. They simply prevent moral collapse.

Christians must resist the temptation to sanctify the sword. The state’s role is not redemptive. It cannot transform hearts. It can only restrain harm. Redemption belongs to God.

The hard truth is this: in a fallen world, restraint sometimes requires power. But that power must always be bounded, accountable, and morally examined.

To defend the oppressed may require force. To glorify force is to become an oppressor.

Between naïve pacifism and militant triumphalism lies a narrower path marked by gravity, restraint, and the sober recognition that even necessary force leaves scars.