A Quote by Lanza del Vasto
Nobody was born nonviolent. No one was born charitable. None of us comes to these things by nature but only by conversion. The first duty of the nonviolent community is helping its members work upon themselves and come to conversion.
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Be nonviolent only with those who are nonviolent to you. And when you can bring me a nonviolent racist, bring me a nonviolent segregationist, then I'll get nonviolent. But don't teach me to be nonviolent until you teach some of those crackers to be nonviolent.
I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent all the time. I'd say, okay, let's get with it, we'll all be nonviolent. But I don't go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody's going to be nonviolent. If they make the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. If they make the White Citizens Council nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. But as long as you've got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don't want anybody coming to me talking any nonviolent talk.
When you go after someone who has a deep ideological belief set that is contradictory with your own, it's conversion. Conversion is hard. Conversion is miraculous. We have entire religions built around the idea of conversion. Politics is not a religion. Politics is about persuasion.
Conversion is not only changing the faith. Conversion is changing the heart and working over there is the grace of God. Then only comes the question of change of faith. Nobody can force you, not even the holy prophets.
Conversion is not a repairing of the old building, but it takes all down, and erects a new structure... The sincere Christian is quite a new fabric, from the foundation to the top-stone. He is a new man, a new creature; all things are become new. Conversion is a deep work, a heart work. It makes a new man in a new world. It extends to the whole man, to the mind, to the members, to the motions of the whole life.
I do make conversion, if conversion means really turning people to God - to have a clean heart and to love God. That's the real conversion.
We canot become nonviolent on the basis of intellectual conviction. Commitment to nonviolence demands a very profound conversion of mind and heart. If we take the time to pray with Jesus, we too will be converted in mind and heart. It won?t work if we try to reason it out. The only way is through a change of heart, a coming into a way of being that is the way of Jesus.
God knew what we were before conversion - wicked, guilty, and defiled; yet He loved us. He knows what we will be after conversion - weak, erring, and frail; yet He loves us.
Surely conversion is a matter between man and his Maker who alone knows his creatures' hearts. A conversion without a clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of God and Religion. Conversion without cleanliness of heart can only be a matter of sorrow, not joy, to a godly person.
We have to believe in the mercy and grace of God to trigger conversion rather than the other way around: that you're only going to get the mercy if you have a conversion. The economy of salvation doesn't work that way.
I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.
We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.
Conversion is a work above man's power... Never think you can convert yourself. If ever you would be savingly converted, you must despair of doing it in your own strength. It is a resurrection from the dead, a new creation, a work of absolute omnipotence... Conversion is a supernatural work.
I am against conversion (to Buddhism). In my speech at UN, the first thing I said was that I am for conversion, but not from one organised religion to another, but from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation.
[He] alone is truly nonviolent who remains nonviolent even though he has the ability to strike.
Remember also, the present is your only time to be saved. There is no believing, no repenting, no conversion in the grave---no minister will speak to you there. This is the time of conversion.
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