In this volume, Jacques Ellul draws on findings from his sociological work to highlight the universal character of recourse to violence, especially on the part of the state and during the revolutionary process. All models of communal life are founded on the use of force, and justify it. Against this universality Ellul puts the radicality of the Gospels, which allow Christians no pact with violence: for Christ did not defeat the authorities by being more powerful than they, but quite the opposite, by stripping them bare with the impuissance of the Cross.