[[Who was Walter Wink|Walter Wink]] coined the term "The Myth of Redemptive Violence", which is the belief that violence, when used for a just cause, can bring about positive change and ultimately save or redeem a situation or people. In other words, if we just punish, harm, imprison or kill enough "bad people", everything will be ok. We will be "safe". Our need for safety will have been met. In fact, that idea even extends so far as to condone *[[Our -actual- God is violence|preemptive violence]]* in our world today. Of course, Walter argues both against the truth of this myth, which the past 100+ years seem to have borne out in graphic detail, and claims it is absolutely against the teachings of Jesus, which I agree with. No matter how many terrorists we kill, we can always find more (in fact, killing 'terrorists' just inspires feelings which foster terrorism). Punishing children doesn't make them not want to do the thing. It just makes them angry at their parents and try to rebel in other ways or find ways to do the thing so their parents don't find out. Redemptive violence also violates the golden rule. It should not be confused with [[What is the protective use of force|the protective use of force]]