The traditional willingness of the church to bless the use of state violence while opposing revolutionary violence is a natural consequence of its political location on the side of successive ruling classes traceable back to the Edict of Milan in 313 СЕ.

It would be wrong, however, to suggest that it is for reasons extraneous to theology that some Christians understand or justify revolutionary violence, while others participate in revolution against tyrannical rulers. It is, in turn, naive simply to condemn all violence, when in South Africa state repression is at an all time high and revolutionary resistance is intensifying daily