Throughout the history
of Christianity, churches and wise Christian leaders have helped their
congregations to “think Christianly” about the issues of their day. It
is not enough for us to merely apply our Christianity to the private
realms of life: our marriages, our families, our friendships, or our
employment. Even worse, it is entirely insufficient for us to merely
apply our Christianity to “the spiritual realm” of life: church
attendance, devotions, fasting, or worship. It has often been said that
either Jesus Christ is Lord of all, or he is not Lord at all. The
Lordship of Jesus Christ extends to the great issues of our day: issues
of war and peace, issues of racial and economic justice, male/female
relations, to name just a few.
A few Sundays ago I
was asked by a sometime attendee at Vineyard, “What is the Vineyard’s
perspective regarding war?” I answered, “The Association of Vineyard
Churches doesn’t have any official position regarding war. Each local
church forges its own direction regarding issues outside of our
association’s statement of faith.”
He then said, “I’ve
never had a pastor answer the following question: can you imagine Jesus
Christ going to war?”
So I said to him,
“Well, I’ll answer the question for you.”
In a sense, this
[article] is a more extended answer to the question asked by this
gentleman. I must state at the outset that I have several dear
Christian friends who come from a pacifist tradition and are Quakers or
Mennonites. As you will see, my own perspective follows a “just war”
Christian tradition. I use a Q&A structure for thinking about the
crisis with Iraq.
1.
Would Jesus
Christ ever go to war or support a war?
The simple answer
is “yes!” Moses said, “The Lord is a warrior (a man of war); the Lord
is his name” (Exodus 15:3). Jeremiah declared, “The Lord is…a dread
warrior” (Jer. 20:11). The prophet Zephaniah declared, “The Lord is a
warrior who gives victory” (Zeph. 3:17). God is often referred to as
“the Lord of Hosts,” a commander of great armies. David said of
Yahweh, “The Lord trains my hands for war” (Ps. 18:34). Remember the
Son of God (Jesus) is the Lord.
2. Is the Old
Testament view of God as a warrior acceptable for New Testament
Christians?
Many people,
especially from a more pacifist position, suggest that the concept of
“the Lord as warrior” is a perspective that must be abandoned by New
Testament Christians. An early Christian heresy taught by the heretic
Marcion suggested that the God of the Old Testament was an inferior
being who was not good in the same sense that the God and Father of
Jesus Christ (the God of love and grace) was good in the New
Testament. The church rejected Marcion and other Gnostic teachers for
so radically separating the Old and New Testament revelation of
God.
Throughout the
church’s history, orthodox Christian teachers have taught the unity of
the Bible. In other words, Jesus Christ did not reveal to us a new
God, or a new conception of God. Indeed, the entire New Testament
presupposes its consistency with the Old Testament. As one great
Reformer, John Calvin, once said, “The difference between the Old and
New Testaments is not a difference in kind, but a difference in
clarity.” The Old Testament functioned by way of shadow and type.
The New Testament offers us substance and fulfillment.
3. Is Jesus
Christ ever portrayed as a warrior?
The answer is yes.
In Revelation 19:11 the apostle John writes, “I saw heaven standing
open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called
Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. …He is
dressed in a robe dipped in blood and his name is the Word of God.
The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and
dressed in fine linen white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp
sword with which to strike down the nations.” “He will rule them with
an iron scepter” [quoting from Ps. 2]. He treads the winepress of the
fury of the wrath of God Almighty” (Rev. 19:11-15).
4. Does God
engage in physical battles (slaying people) or is His warfare confined
to the spiritual realm (dealing with the demonic)?
There are many
occasions in the Old Testament where God assists human warriors to
fight, kill, and win battles. For example, in the book of Joshua
(Joshua 10:12-27) God held the sun in place so that Joshua and the
nation of Israel could win a great victory against their enemies. On
occasion, God himself slays the enemies of his people directly from
heaven (Ex. 14:24-29; 15:1-18). On other occasions, the Lord uses
human agents to achieve his will of military victory (see Joshua 8).
5. Doesn’t
the New Testament requirement that Christians “love your enemies and
pray for those that persecute you” (Mt. 5:43) forbid Christians from
ever engaging in war?
Historically,
Christians have been divided about the proper scope of Jesus’ command
in the Sermon on the Mount. Christians coming from a pacifist
position, such as John Howard Yoder, believe that Jesus is laying out
a political injunction that forbids the use of force or violence by
any Christian. For other Christians, such as St. Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, and John Calvin, Jesus was forbidding personal retaliation
and the seeking of personal vengeance. For them, a Christian always
ought to be willing to lay down their personal right to seek vengeance
or retribution (see Romans 12:19, 20). But this commandment does not
extend to the duty of protecting the lives of the innocent or
restraining evil even if such protection involves the use of military
force.
6. Isn’t it
true that the entire early church was pacifist and that Christians did
not join the army until after the Roman Emperor Constantine became a
Christian in the 4th century?
Many Christians
believe that this reading of early church history is inaccurate and
that the pacifist claim of the unanimity of early church opposition to
military service has been exaggerated. (see e.g., Darrell Cole,
When God Said War Is Right (2002)). Recent historians suggest
that early believers were not opponents of warfare and military
service per se, rather, they objected to military service
because of the role of pagan religious practices in the military.
Even so, many early church fathers offered positive perspectives about
military involvement including Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215).
Clement claimed that Jesus, through the mouth of John the Baptist,
commanded soldiers to be just, but he never commanded soldiers to
quit soldiering (Lk. 3:14). Unlike prostitution, which is
inherently immoral, apparently John the Baptist believed that
soldiering could be a moral and, indeed, an honorable profession.
7. Why would
a Christian ever engage in war?
The law of love –
love of God and love of his fellow man ultimately binds a Christian.
Out of love for God, a Christian works to achieve justice in the
world, that is, to check evil and to bring about good. Because of the
love of our neighbor, a Christian acts to defend the weak, innocent,
and defenseless. As the early church father, Ambrose, suggested, “The
Christian who stands idly by while his neighbor is attacked is not a
virtuous person.” Indeed, Ambrose said, to allow one’s neighbor to be
attacked, and to fail to use force in his or her defense suggests that
the individual may not even be a Christian. So we read from
Ambrose, “Thus, holy Moses feared not to undertake terrible wars for
his people’s sake, nor was he afraid of the arms of the mightiest
kings, nor yet was he frightened at the savagery of barbarian
nations. He put to one side the thought of his own safety so as to
give freedom to the people” (On Duties, 1.135).
8. How has
the church historically determined which wars were legitimate for
Christians to support or to fight in?
The Christian just
war tradition has formulated a number of criteria to help Christians
make decisions about when a Christian is allowed to fight. The goal
in using these criteria is to figure out where justice lies when a
conflict is proposed. Should a conflict fail to meet these criteria,
a Christian must say “no” to entering that particular conflict. It is
an absolutely impermissible position for a Christian to suggest “my
country right or wrong!” For a Christian, our citizenship is in
heaven (Phil. 3:20). Our loyalty is ultimately not to our nation, our
president, or our government, but to our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Christian
tradition has typically settled on several criteria for determining
whether a war is just.
- Just Cause –
Augustine listed a number of specific just causes including
self-defense against an aggressor, restoring what has been unjustly
seized, etc. The Christian must say “no” to proposed wars in which
the people being attacked do not deserve to be attacked.
- Right Intention –
Right intention means that our use of force is to advance the good and
to suppress evil. In applying these criteria when we combat the
enemy, this principle constrains us both to never intentionally
kill the innocent, and to do all we can to avoid killing the
innocent. Non-combatant immunity is a demand of Christian just
war theory. The loss of innocent life must never be minimized merely
as “collateral damage.”
- War is the Only
Way to Right the Wrong – Because warfare brings such enormous human
suffering, we should try to right wrongs by means other than warfare,
if we can. Christians have always said that if wrongs can be righted
by negotiation, let’s negotiate. If wrongs can be righted through
sanctions, let’s apply sanctions. On the other hand, for just war
theorists, by the time WWII erupted, there simply was no other way to
overcome the evils of Hitler and Nazi Germany other than waging war
against them.
- A Reasonable Hope
of Success – There is simply no point in sacrificing many lives and
causing much suffering if we have no chance of succeeding in the
fight. This requires us to have a clear definition of what success
will amount to and how we will measure “success.”
9. What is
our responsibility as Christians in the current crisis?
- We Christians are
responsible to think Christianly about our country’s engagement in
something so momentous as a war. Thousands of people will likely be
killed. As you listen to the arguments for and against a potential
war with Iraq, apply the traditional criteria of a just war to what
you are hearing from the Administration and its opponents. Again, the
issues are not merely political, whether you are a Republican or
Democrat, conservative or liberal, a veteran (or have a family member
in the military), or have never served in the Armed Forces. This
issue is to have each one of us think Christianly.
- We Christians have
a responsibility to pray:
With much
affection,
