Spencer Heath Archive

Item 870

Recollection by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath

About 1955

The use of force is justified in self-defense. It is necessary to take whatever action is required to save one’s life. But that situation does not occur in society.

It is not a social situation. Perhaps Christ told Peter to put up the sword — which would be natural in perhaps most cases, and we would not continue to survive if it were not — because he understood intuitively that the answer to

Rome was not to resist it but to act in an alternative way, and he felt if he fought Rome, that would be misunderstood as the alternative his inspired mission it was to preach.