An afterthought on Friday’s sermon: I spoke there not to beat up on soldiers, who may be nobly self-sacrificing, altruistic, and deeply patriotic individuals. It’s pivotal, though, that Christian leaders insist on some distinctions, wherever they come down relative to the impending steamrollering of Iraq.
First, war is never right. There is a prevailing school of Christian ethical reflection—one from which I dissent—that teaches that disciples of Jesus may participate in warfare in defense of a just cause, on behalf of innocents, when every other means of bringing about the desired end has failed; such a situation makes participation in a war “just,” though it does not make the war itself a positive option. (My own Anglican tradition affirms in its Articles of Religion that “It is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the wars,” though the Latin version of that article stipulates “et iusta bella administrare.”)
There may be no room for pride in war, only penitence; there may be no room for pre-emption in war, only response. (A righteous combatant will not strike a first blow, because she or he doesn’t know that the adversary actually is a combatant until the adversary starts the fight.) The Bush administration’s actions in North Korea illustrate that there are indeed other ways of addressing unstable tyrants who possess weapons of mass destruction. When Bush singles out Hussein and Iraq as “deserving” a pre-emptive war that will surely affect non-combatants disproportionately (perhaps even deliberately so), his selectivity falsifies any claim that this could be a “just” war.
Second, while soldiers may be humble, altruistic, and noble, theirs is emphatically not the greatest sacrifice one can make. There’s a tremendous difference between risking one’s life in warfare, armed with automatic weapons, missiles, grenades, bombs, and so on (on one hand) and risking one’s life in service to others unarmed, from the conviction that helping those in need is one’s fundamental obligation (on the other hand).
Soldiers do make the incalculably grave sacrifice of their unwillingness to take another human life. That’s much, much bigger than fast-talking neocon pundits seem to understand, and greater even than the risk of their lives (what does it profit a soldier to win a war, and lose the meaning for which the war was fought?) I will honor the sacrifice of any soldiers, living or dead, who feel (or “felt”) the weight of responsibility that comes from renouncing their obligation to not kill any other human being. I will grieve the loss of any soldiers, living or dead, who can’t face the magnitude of that decision and so must make themselves out to be immune to moral responsibility.
Third, the church could only being to imagine itself making these sorts of distinctions when had lost its first self-understanding, that of stateless witnesses to a peace and glory that admit of no coercion or violence. Once a church begins to think of itself as intrinsically related to state functions, the state’s problems become that church’s problems. That need not be the case; Christians can still find their truest identities as those whose citizenship belongs to no earthly domain, and some still do. They are not retreating from some primary allegiance to the state, but respecting a primary allegiance to statelessness.
Posted by AKMA at February 23, 2003 03:42 PM | TrackBackI certainly have some sympathy for your position here, and agree with a great deal of it. The problem I keep coming back to when wrestling w pacifism as a Christian is the wealth of OT lit on war. While the prophets spoke out against "violence" in some sense or other, there was never a condemnation of "war", merely the recording of successes and failures. Were the Israelite wrong, I ask myself, to sing the song of Deborah?
I certainly get the impression that christian pacifists hold a very different view of the relationship between OT and NT ethics than the majority view within my presbyterian circle.
I do like your point about the sacrifice involved in deciding to kill. Personally violence terifies me, and I've always wondered if it wouldn't be a LOT easier to sacrifice my own life than to actually take someone else's.
In any event,may God lead us all to do His will more faithfully.
Posted by: Paul Baxter at February 23, 2003 08:03 PMThank you for your thoughts on "Just" War Theory. Much to often just theory gets twisted and distorted into something it really is not. What is important to remember throughout the story of Salvation, is that God was the Sovreign, not government, and when God wasn't remembered as such, the repercussions were devastating.
Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
Posted by: Jeff Reich at February 23, 2003 08:33 PMThanks, Paul and Jeff. Paul, one point about the wars of the Old Testament is that these frequently bear the direct approval (if not outright instruction) of God. Now, I don't know what to make of that in the ancient context, but I am relatively confident that God is not directly instructing the present occupant of the Oval Office or his counselors that they need to annihilate Iraq, but can cool it on North Korea.
Maybe I’ wrong—but I don’t think so.
So, if God were specifically to instruct me to arm myself and go to war (a là Jeanne d'Arc), I suppose I’ suit up, and if God instructed me (as Peter) to take an animal, kill, and eat it, I guess I’ do that. But short of direct divine intervention, I’ll remain a vegetarian and pacifist.
Posted by: AKMA at February 23, 2003 09:38 PMThank you AKMA.
Posted by: Chris at February 24, 2003 02:20 AMThe thing that can make one nervous is that a lot of the language being used to justify the war takes on the tone as "America as a Theocracy", as "God's American Israel". Is it fair to say that many American Christians do see America as an OT style, "nation of God"?
Posted by: JJ at February 25, 2003 01:44 AM“Is it fair to say that many Americans see the US as a nation of God?” Well, probably yes and no.
A particular visible slice of the US population does indeed seem persuaded that the US is so righteous and noble a nation that they should feel free to act as a kind of leg-breaker for God’s will as it has been revealed to the President.
Probably most US citizens, though, simply neglect to distinguish their allegiances to God and country. They would not go so far as to think specifically of the US as a modern Israel (in the sense of an anointed nation uniquely commissioned to enact God’s will), but they would largely assume that US civic ideals cohere with God’s will in a way that justifies the US acting out the role of an enforcer to the Christian virtues of liberty, equality, and fraternity, the Christian goals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (That last bit was not meant to be taken literally.)
Then many US citizens don’t know or think much about Christian theology and ethics except as a sort of liberal ideology with God tacked on at the end. They would probably, in general, oppose the war on the grounds that the US is acting against its own best and wisest founding principles, or that war is not healthy for children and other living things. And, like, Jesus was against war.
And then some Christians just flat-out understand themselves to be citizens of no earthly dominion, and that their lives must reflect, to the extent that they can manage it, the non-violence and ministry of reconciliation that led Jesus to a cross rather than an armed rebellion.
I’m oversimplifying and leaving somme folks out, but in a short compass, that’the way the scene looks to me.
Posted by: AKMA at February 25, 2003 10:14 PMNote the new asterisks whenever we reference favoriteNumber, except for that new line right before the return.
Posted by: Eleanor at January 13, 2004 10:01 AMBut some variables are immortal. These variables are declared outside of blocks, outside of functions. Since they don't have a block to exist in they are called global variables (as opposed to local variables), because they exist in all blocks, everywhere, and they never go out of scope. Although powerful, these kinds of variables are generally frowned upon because they encourage bad program design.
Posted by: Garret at January 13, 2004 10:02 AMWhen a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.
Posted by: Leonard at January 13, 2004 10:02 AM