I kid. That discussion we had over spring break was good but it pretty much just addressed personal violence, not the violence of nations or how Christians are involved. We touched on it, but I left unsatisfied.
I've heard many times from Christian teachers that it's wrong for one to commit murder, but when two countries are at war, all bets are off.
That's a load of crap. Wounds are wounds, murders are murders, rapes are rapes, a heart filled with anger and hate is a heart filled with anger and hate whether you're in a war or not.
Perhaps that's why I'm being so rebelious and want to talk about this so much. I think there's alot of false ideas about war going around in Christian circles and no one seems to be stepping up to challenge them anymore.
Lest you think that I'm not personally invested in this, I just want to say that both of my grandfathers were in WW2 and my dad was a cop all his life. The conclusions that we reach here have impact in my life. Just throwing that out there. Now on to the discussion.
First of all, you both make a good point that God gives us a fire to fight for what we ought. However, like Nitish said, your feelings of what God's calling you to do need to be tempered with a more objective source of God's revelation. That's why we're having this discussion. To find out if our feelings are right. I know I certainly have the desire to make my country strong. But I don't know if that's a right desire.
Transition...
What I'm about to say does not necessarily reflect what I actually believe.
These are some of the arguments I'm wrestling with, though.
1. Our home is not this world.
The fact is that all countries are of "the world." There is no country, not Israel, not America, not no one, that is not "the world."
Hebrews 11.13-16
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Why should a Christian, who is supposed to fix their sight on this better country and acknowledge that they are an alien and a stranger in the world (1 Peter 2.11), engage themselves in the conflicts of the world? Why should a citizen of t
he heavenly country, whose interests lie elsewhere, bind up their life course...and indeed their life...with the interests of a worldly country? Why should a Christian die for the sake of the world's petty interests?Don't the countries of this world just fight to increase their own power?
How can a Christian involve themselves in such a conflict? We are not about gaining power for ourselves to our gain.
A Christian should then fight only for the sake of the country to which they are allied with...God's country if you will...yes, I mean Texas.
Seriously, though, we've gotten to the point where most people don't even think about who they're allying themselves with. So often it's seen as God and country rather than God or country, which appears to be a more biblical perspective on the issue. Let's employ a little bit of the principle behind the separation of the Church and state here. Let's let the Church influence the state and not let the Church get bound up in the affairs of state. The Church will crumble if it does.
2. Isn't there a better way?
As Christians, we should be constantly looking for God's way of doing things in this world...and acting that way. So the question is, is war God's way of settling conflicts at this point in time?
Deuteronomy 20.10
When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.
We see in Deuteronomy 20.10 that God's way of dealing with people is, ideally, peaceful. More convicting is
2 Corinthians 10.3-5
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
So the Bible talks about fighting and using weapons, but not the weapons of this world. Wouldn't this mean that, as Christians, we are called to not take up arms to settle national conflicts? Shouldn't we fight instead with spiritual weapons of service, wisdom, etc. ...the knowledge of God?
I think that's a beautiful idea. A noble, inspiring idea.
You don't hear stories of the Apostles taking up arms to fight for or against Rome or any other country for that matter.
A related idea is what you said about the discipline, honor, brotherhood, trust and obedience found in the military. It seems to me that we should see those qualities in the Church. Why should we have to take up the weapons of this world to experience them? And I believe that in the Church they'd be found in a better form...one that allows for much more creativity and thought than in a military. That's one of the huge things that bothers me about the military: their training is so much about near-brainwashing. I don't think that's a good idea. Man is not a machine and should not be trained to be little more than one. That's not what God wants of us.
3. Do Christians really need to act all the time?
1 Corinthians 5.12
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?
Do we really need to act when God's moral law is challenged? When a non-Christian man buys a prostitute is it our duty to do something? When one country attacks another, is a Christian required to step into the conflict? If so, then we are failing radically in our mission.
4. Christians in war - the Crusades
We still haven't been forgiven for the Crusades, a war that Christians got involved in for wrong reasons.
A bad idea.
Again, these views aren't meant to be a personal attack and they don't necessarily represent what I believe. I hope no one feels personally attacked by them...but I do hope they will provoke personal reflection and, if need be, change.
What do you think?
3 comments:
"Let's employ a little bit of the principle behind the separation of the Church and state here."
Is this a Biblical principle? I don't know. That's why I'm asking. I've always wondered.
"It seems to me that we should see those qualities in the Church. "
They should! But I find it funny that we often times don't, and yet find MANY examples of those traits in military settings. Hence my fascination with Sparta. Could they possibly teach the church a thing or two about "discipline, honor, brotherhood, trust and obedience"?
"...their training is so much about near-brainwashing."
I'd like to see you say that to the face of a Marine. Honestly, I think that is a pretty lofty, bold, and extremely broad, claim that doesn't hold much water. I understand where you are coming from, but I am speaking from personal interactions with people I know who have served in the military.
There is something you touched on a couple time that I totally agree with. We as followers of Christ, are called to approach our decisions, especially something like war, devoid of the normal options presented to us by the world and in a new and entirely creative way.
It's not a biblical principle per say. It just seems to be a good idea, at least how it was originally brought up as a one way wall where the church influences the state but the state doesn't influence the church. The idea was in reaction to what the church had become over in England.
Actually one of the primary sources of the idea that it's brainwashing comes from an ex-marine. And the other comes from a guy who served in Iraq. The first told a story of how he and the rest of his...squad or something were told they were going to a have a fireworks show that night, since it was the 4th of July. So that night they all go into a room and sit down as if to watch fireworks. At that point the commanding officers told the sergeants present to make firework noises and told the people sitting down to go "oooh, aaah". All in the name of doing what your superiors indicate. It's supposed to break you down. The second person I refer to, that was a more general conversation but we certainly talked about the level of obidience that's required, to the point that if you're on the field in a combat situation and you disobey an order...or even question it...your commanding officer can kill you.
Brainwashing is a word with negative connotations, and certainly I don't mean to imply that every military is brainwashing people to the extent that many evil people do. What I do mean to ask is, what's the price we pay for a good army? And can a Christian pay that price to be a part of it?
And just the fact that you'd think that asking that to the face of a marine might be a bad idea for one reason or another is just the kind of fierce loyalty that is kind of disturbing. Why is it such an emotional issue that we question our military and our involvement with it? We should! More Christians should be asking these questions for the sake of the God they love...and for the sake of their country.
WOW!! You really thought this one through!! I'm so happy you have guys to talk to you about this stuff... I don't think I could handle it
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