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The sermon at church yesterday explored questions such as “Why does God allow war?” It got me thinking on my stand on war and peace issues. Generally speaking, I subscribe to the Just War theory that was first developed by Augustine, and has since gone through several revisions. And although Just War prescribes a set of rules or criteria before engaging in war, thereby reserving war as a last ditch option, it does not (as many critics of the theory claim) advocate pacifism.
In contrast, pacifism opposes all kinds of violence and opposes war as a solution to conflict. Although I grew up in a brutal war zone, have seen first hand the horrors of war, and tend to want to exhaust caution and rationale before engaging in military action, I am not a pacifist.
- 1. Pacifism (maybe not in theory, but definately in action) seems to deny the existence of evil. Evil exists in our world. And though the evil that exists may exit in context and is not pure evil, it is still evil. And there come points, where one cannot bargain and work out diplomacy with it. For example, in 1939, Neville Chamberlain, Great Britain’s Prime Minister, ended a meeting with Hitler when he boldly declared, “We have achieved peace in our time.” Within months, Great Britain was at war with Germany. Hitler was bent on dominating the world for evil purposes, and the only way to stop him was to engage him in war.
- 2. Christian pacifists tend to defend their stance through scripture by quoting Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Turn the other cheek”, Moses’s law when it says, “Do not murder” and Paul in Romans who declares, “Overcome evil with good.” What is significant about Jesus is that he was not bent on creating a new political system. His revolution was that of hearts and minds and not of people in an earthly kingdom. His disciples would have liked that, but Jesus’s concern was for our hearts and minds. And Paul would have walked in that same tradition. While Jesus wants to have an impact on the political landscape, his teaching to turn the other cheek is primarily meant to be about personal relationships within a community.
Some scholars suggest that the commission to the Apostles in Matthew 28 where they are to go and proclaim the kingdom to the ends of the earth is an echo of the commission to the Israelites and Joshua in Joshua 1, where they are supposed to claim the holy land. The difference is that in Joshua, they would conquer the land for the Kingdom of God, and in Matthew, they would conquer hearts.
- 3. Loving and turning the other cheek is a powerful, radical response to evil, but when you are responsible for a state engaged in conflict with people of a different worldview, it doesn’t work quite the same way. Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did bring a revolution through peaceful means, but they were operating within government systems that could be transformed through these means.
What does this all mean? Personally, I was against and continue to remain against the American war in Iraq. It was a war sold on dishonest evidence (remember Weapons of Mass Destruction?) and with an agenda of democracy and fighting terrorism that was flawed from the beginning. However, I thought the US needed to respond to the 9/11 attacks by fighting in Afghanistan.
And with the recent Lebanon/Israel conflict, though I’m Lebanese, Israel does have a right to defend itself against Hezbollah’s actions. However, Israel needs to learn how to win the peace not just the war. Israel’s current strategy offers short-term solutions. By destroying Lebanon, they have effectively created space for more anti-Israel militia groups to develop.
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Good post, I appreciate it a lot. I would want to push you on point #2, however.
It seems that you’re saying that Jesus is interested in changing individuals’ attitudes and wills, but not creating a community of disciples. I would agree that our personal lives on the individual level will be changed, but I think that Jesus’ primary goal was gathering a people to God, not in saving individuals. Some argue that Jesus wants individuals who by their common salvation become a people, that is, Jesus is primarily concerned with the inidividual and the community is a by-product. I work the other way around.
My questions are then, what does that community of people look like and how do its individual members interact with God, with each other, and with the world around them? While I disagree with much that the “Social Gospel” has to say, I do agree that the gospel of Jesus Christ is by its very nature social.
I’m not a pacifist either, but I am greatly influenced by my pacifist sisters and brothers in Christ. At the very least, I would agree that Jesus’ way was non-violent, that he pushes us toward non-violence, and that the burden of proof is on those who wish to use force.
I agree with you Tyler, especially with your last paragraph. I don’t intend to communicate that Jesus is only interested in personal salvation.
What I intend to communicate is that Jesus’s primary goal was not about political reformation or a new earthly kingdom. Pacifism seems to put its emphasis on Jesus’s teachings as how we engage as a country, rather than how communities operate (in other words, I’m delineating the difference between a state or a political body and a community where the allegiance is to God and his kingdom).
Thanks for your clarification. You’ve hit the core of the issue in your second paragraph. That is, how do these communities of faith operate within a larger society? How do we take our cues from the Bible and the rest of Christian history when the American republic isn’t something covered much? Those are the questions that I see the pacifist traditions ask? Most of those traditions are admittedly Anabaptist (e.g., Mennonite) or Quaker in background. Some want to withdraw from society. Some want to withdraw as a means of protest. Some want to directly engage, but still draw the line at using violence or supporting those organizations who use violence. That is to say, I see a continuum. But in many, no matter where they fall on the continuum, there is the emphasis on being a contrast community whose allegiance to God’s kingdom contrasts the allegiance to the state.
How are we to be citizens of God’s kingdom here and now as well as citizens of the socio-political bodies we live in?
Eddy, I’ve read and re-read this post several times before commenting. You’ve made some interesting points that I have to contend with. I think I fundamentally agree with you, but I am very reluctant to endorse any kind of violence and even more reluctant to call that violence “just” in the sense of moral absolute.
I agree that going into Afghanistan was needed after 9/11. But for arguments sake, would there have been a peaceful way to remove the Taliban and Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan? Was war the only answer? Or was it the only answer given our criteria of expediency? And with that, does our desire for expedient resolution qualify as a valid reason to go to war?
Sorry to bombard you with questions, but as I ponder what solutions are available in Israel/Palestine, these are the questions I ask myself. So far, I’ve refused to answer myself.
Well I’m learning much from the feedback… Maybe the context of the post might help too: For the past several years, I’ve been mostly touting the Pacifism worldview, but I began to see that there are some holes that I could not answer.
I think war is sometimes necessary. However, it needs be a “last resort” option (and the criteria of “Just Theory” make good sense). In other words, I think that the recent turn of American foreign policy to “preemptive war” has gone with little debate.
Samer, you do bring up an excellent point in “criteria of expediency”. You’re right that our desire for expediency could lead to unnecessary fighting. And I would say that needs to be a difficult process and tension for decision-makers.