"Jesus taught his followers not to hate their enemies but to love them; and he acted accordingly when the armed crowd came with Judas to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest him. In that historic encounter he specifically forbade his disciples to use violence. Jesus rebuked one of his disciples, Peter, who, untrained in swordsmanship, swung wildly with his sword and cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant, Malchus. "Put your sword back into its place," Jesus said, "for all who take the sword will perish by the sword."" He could not have made it more plain. To take the sword, gun, or bomb in Christ's name is to repudiate both Christ and his message. He will have none of it. Gunning for God, in the sense of taking a weapon into one's hands on God's behalf, is a contradiction of and an affront to the Christian message." (Oxford Professor John Lennox)
"Those who pick up weapons to defend Christianity are not following Christ, they are DISOBEYING Him... One of the central historical features of the New Testament is the trial of Jesus. It is crucially important, and I discussed this with the late Christopher Hitchens. I said: Christopher, I agree with you. This is the unacceptable face of religion. But don't you realize that it's the charge of fomenting political violence that put Jesus on trial in the first place? He was accused of terrorism, to put it in modern language. ... When Pilate investigated him, he knew, of course, that Jesus had not resisted arrest. When Simon Peter took a sword to swipe the head off the high priest's servant, he wasn't very good and he cut his ear off. Now, if I might say something about that: I believe Jesus put the ear back on, but you would be very poetically dim not to see what's being said. If you take up weapons to defend Christ or his message, you cut the ears off of people in a big way." (Oxford Professor John Lennox)
"We know what the power of the world looks like. When push comes to shove, as it often does, it is the power of violence, using the threat of pain and death. It is, yes, the power of tanks and bombs, and also of guns and knives and whips and prisons and barbed wire and bulldozers. Weapons to destroy people's lives; machines to destroy their homes. Cruelty in the home or at work. Malice and manipulation where there should be gentleness, kindness, and wisdom. Jesus's power is of a totally different sort, as he explained to the Roman governor a few minutes before the governor sent him to his death—thereby proving the point. The kingdoms of the world run on violence. The kingdom of God, Jesus declared, runs on love. That is the good news." (New Testament Scholar N.T. Wright)