Nonresistance

Once again Bible Study tonight was very fruitful... Toward the end I brought up some of my beliefs as a Mennonite in a world where we have the realities of things like the war in Iraq, and government encroaching on religious freedom. It was very helpful to me to actually state my beliefs, and they came much more fluently than I expected. Doubt I can express myself as well again, but here are some of the points that I brought up:
One of the things that we discussed before is how to justify the Biblical passage about submitting to authority with the pronounced anti-Christian governments we see around the world even today; my thinking on that is that when the government orders something that I can't faithfully comply to, perhaps I am called not to compromise my morals but to accept the punishment that is given for breaking those laws. I guess that's the whole idea behind conscienciously objecting to something, at least in my mind: don't do it, but be willing to accept the consequences that your actions may bring. Yeah, that's a tough thing to really be willing to do, but God never called us to a life of comfort, and never promised to make the way easy for those who follow him. There are plenty of references to the trials that we can expect to face because of our faith. The beauty of it, though, is that "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
Brandon's question was: what if I were placed in a situation where I was face to face with one of the Republican Guard in Iraq, and it was either I kill him or he would kill me? Put in that situation, I hope I would allow him to kill me, because I have faith in the fact that death isn't the end; I have the hope of meeting Christ in heaven after I die, so the prospect of being killed shouldn't be the defining point of my decision-making. Jesus took away the sting of death, we should no longer have to fear it. Faced with the option of either dying or killing another, the best option for any Christian should be to die, because they know without a doubt that after their death they will be with God. In killing someone else, though, you could be taking from them forever that possibility. Can we really be so selfish as to rob another of eternal glory simply to give ourselves a few more days of scratching out a living here on earth?