catapult magazine

In general, I am against war as a problem solving method. Specifically, I am against the current war because there seems to be even less justification for it than any I can think of that the United States has been involved in (except maybe Reagan?s ?war? against Grenada); because of the Bush Administration?s less-than-sincere attempts at diplomacy; because of the Administration?s use of words that make the war effort look like it is God-sanctioned; and because of the shameless ?spin? that the Administration has put on the information they use to justify our aggression. I will continue to be against war – and I think that there are going to be plenty (or one nearly-perpetual one) for me to be against. So be it – a sad state of affairs, likely to get much worse because of the handling of the current situation.

But what really puzzles and concerns me is not that the Administration chose to manufacture this particular war, but that the main supporters of the war are (if you believe the polls) people who identify themselves as ?Christian.? Can somebody help me out with this one? When I read the Gospels (the part of the Bible that tells us what Christianity is all about), I can?t find any scripture that encourages, sanctions, or justifies war. Instead, I see: the one who hasn?t sinned can cast the first stone; blessed are the peace makers; pray for those who despitefully use you; let your light show shine before men that they will see your good works, and thereby glorify your father in heaven; etc., etc., etc. Am I missing something?

Back during the Cold War, a famous radio evangelist Carl MacIntyre became more famous with his Rush Limbaugh-type pronouncement, ?Kill a Commie for Christ.? Is that was this is all about?

Religion for Thinkers:
http://www.netcom.com/~symbios/relig.html

Hmm. And I thought I was bad for implying that perhaps anti-war advocates bordered on treason at times. Now pro-war Christians are perhaps not-so-Christian? And the stones fly …

i personally wouldn’t suggest such a thing, but i understand where sandy is coming from. can we, as christians, truly support war as a method to solve problems? or can we recognize it as one of the many terribly unfortunate results of the fall? a necessary evil at times, perhaps?

i don’t know . . .

I don’t know. It seems most Christians against the war quote the New Testament. But there is the Old Testament to consider. God is both fierce and kind. How can a person just ignore the God of the Old Testament – war, or no war?

I didn’t start this topic to be divisive or to “throw stones.” I’m asking: how can Christians read Jesus’ words – and the rest of the New Testament – and come up with a rationale for even the “justest” war? There were lots of wars recorded in the Old Testament – even some that God sanctioned – but I thought Jesus showed us the “new way” in the Sermon on the Mount; e.g., we used to say “an eye for an eye, but now I say…” etc.

Yeah, good question. The New Testament really isn’t that helpful, it seems, when it comes to direct advice on the subject of war. Since Jesus came at a time when Rome had unified much of the world and things were relatively peaceful, he doesn’t seem too preoccupied with the subject of violent conflicts between two or more nations. We see that Paul uses the Roman government at times to get out of jams with the Jews, brandishing his Roman citizenship when need be, so maybe there’s some kind of model about how Christians are to engage in the political structure of a society. I don’t know, do you see Jesus’ message as one of passivism? To me, it seems like the New Testament sidesteps the issue altogether, as if war doesn’t apply to the church much. But it might be a stretch to call this lack of commentary on war a clear rebuke of violent conflict. And I don’t see how the fact that everyone’s a sinner makes a difference when it comes to the rightness or wrongness of war.

[just a nit-picky interjection, but a commitment to peace at all times is “pacifism,” not “passivism.” unintentional, i’m sure, but the difference is extremely important.]

Point taken. Very important distinction. The idea of passivity is very much related to our Christian story, though—…. I don’t know if this is the time or place for a philosophical rant, but I’ve been interested that the English word “passive” comes from the Greek word that is close to “pascal”, as in the “pascal lamb”.

Jesus, the God-Man, the pascal lamb, laid down his life or “became passive” for humankind. This sacrifice must have been extreme foolishness to the Greeks, whose philosophy always encourages one not to be passive, but to actively BECOME above and over all else—to become more like God. Christianity preaches a God, however, that became a passive object for man to kill (when he was on the cross, he didn’t DO anything, he just hung there, very passively and unGodlike) and proclaims that if you want to become like God, you ought to follow the pascal lamb, the passive one. What kind of God gives up His full Godness to save His creatures? Pure foolishness—and just plain unGreek (i.e. barbaric)!

I thought this topic might draw a little more interest than is so far evident. After all, another topic is asking us “what can we do as Christians?” about the Iraq war. How can we talk about that if we don’t talk about how Christians should feel about war? We ask “what would Jesus drive?” Perhaps we should be asking, is God on our side?

Which means, I think, for this discussion, that the Christian presumption is heavily against war. That is, we practice suspicion about war because war is almost always first about extending the power, riches, pleasure, and honor of one’s self and one’s friends.

Grant is right that the New Testament doesn’t give a long-lasting meditation on war and I’m not sure we need to say that the New Testament would come down for or against war in general. The New Testament, along Grant’s lines (see Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus and Richard Hays’ The Moral Vision of the NT for decent extensions of the argument that Grant makes), regards discipleship to be a discipleship of participating in the patterns of Jesus’ life – meaning that being like God – or getting resurrected – comes only through a life of cross-bearing – or, as I like to say, confrontational embrace.

So, given that Christians are people who confrontationally embrace themselves and others, absolute utilitarian war or war for the sake of more oil is demonic. If we wage war, it is a different kind of war (most international agreements on war implicitly acknowledge the Christian just war tradition since Augustine).

The trouble with this war, it seems to me, is that we’re just not sure about the end of this war (too much appearance of conflicting interests in the Bush folks) and that the authority to wage this war pre-emptively is questionable (it is more like a policing act, which means the U.N. has to be involved).

On the other hand, I think that we don’t need one Christian mode of action on this. We need Christian action that is symbolically coherent, not logically coherent. Some of us ought to be staunch pacifists and some of us ought to be willing to fight in just wars in order to decrease the amount of possible damage done in the war.

So, if SandyWilbur is becoming convinced by the Spirit that she/he is a pacifist, I say she should be a pacifist. In fact, we need her/him to be a pacifist. As a pacifist she presents a clear vision for those of us willing to fight in just war – that war is ultimately unsatisfying, that we don’t want any more of it, and that hope is not a calculation of interests. Hope endures things that seem hopeless (i.e. the inevitability of war for some end better than not fighting with violence).

Always hard to shed light on something after Keith speaks…silly me. And so I would only say the following. I think that it is difficult and dangerous to take the words of Christ such as ‘turn the other cheek, blessed are the peacemakers etc’ when speaking of war and national politic. For examply, none of us question the right or wrongness of the overal nature of the laws and expectations which govern our ‘together’ life in society. No one would say, “you should simply turn the other cheek when someone murders or steals”. Most of us agree that this would be a dangerous posture to take when attempting to keep order in our society. Instead, we agree that there are laws and consequences that need to be upheld if we are to live together in peace.

Please remember though…that this is no commentary on the rightness or wrongness of this particular war. It is simply an observation about the words of Jesus.