ABSTRACT
Richard Harries has written about the subject and appealed to the just war tradition. This chapter considers five authors who in different ways have challenged the culture of violence in the name of Christ. Two are representatives of what may be termed the radical Christian tradition: Hans Denck in the sixteenth century, and Gerrard Winstanley in the seventeenth. The other three come from the twentieth century. One of them, John Howard Yoder, as a Mennonite, is the inheritor of the radical Reformation practice of the sixteenth century, of which Hans Denck was one of the earliest advocates. Rene Girard has influenced many with his large-scale explanation of the origin of violence and its place in culture. Finally, William Stringfellow is the only Anglican writer. Stringfellow was an American lawyer and lay theologian. He was hailed by Karl Barth as the theologian to whom America should listen.
