keith@uunet.uu.net (Keith McIntyre) (03/05/91)
This is written 2/28/91, one day after President Bush declared military victory in the gulf war. There has been a great deal of discussion on the war among Christians and whether or not a Christian should be for or against war. Breifly let me summarize significant points in the debate I have read. 1) We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourself. 2) We are commnaded not to kill. 3) Killing means murder, not killing in other senses. 4) There is a separation of church and state in the U.S. 5) Everyone must pray to God and receive guidance from His Spirit on such matters. The operative commandment to me has been Romans Chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. We must not be conformed to the patterns of this world. Instead we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Then and only then can we understand what God's will is. This is not a matter of what one person hears in his heart. The war in the gulf is simply God's will or it is not. Our inability to perceive the will of God is only a reflection of our lack of transformation. All I can see is evidence of the Church conforming to the patterns of the world. This extends to almost any cultural trend that has happened recently. (I am speaking of the U.S. church here - what I am familiar with.) The Church in the U.S. was strongly pro war during WW II, as was the majority of the population. During the height of the anti-communist McCarthy era of the US the church was primarily anti-communist as well. In the Vietnam war, the church became vocally anti-war as well. During the "me" decade of the '80s, the "prosperity doctrine" became a significant force in the church. To be honest, I view most anti-war opinions as simply a reflection of the cultural attitudes prevalent in this country in the post Vietnam era. A major part of this has been the "flower child" attitude of live and let live. The church developed an attitude of not imposing their morality and views on the country and quietly sitting in their pews on Sunday after the hippie/yippie/Woodstock era stopped US society as a whole from judging whether someone's actions were morally upright or not. In fact, I would go further than the above and state that the US has been so damaged by the post Vietnam syndrome that most people in this country had begun to think that there was very little that was worth fighting and/or dying for. The church again reflected that by allowing untold numbers of laws to be passed in the U.S. that restrict the practice of Christianity. Other laws have been passed that encourage the practice of sin. In summary I will say that over the years the church's actions in the U.S. have been mostly a reflection of what U.S. society has been doing. Indeed, many of the doctrines taught in the pulpits have been a reflection of U.S. culture. The recent return to activism by the church has been accompanied by a return to activism by mainstream U.S. society. The ways of the Spirit of God are incomprehensible to the worldly mind. Yet all our debates on war, politics, everyday life, etc. are using paradigms and concepts that find ready counterparts in the world. When will we as Christians desire a transformation? As for the war in the gulf being God's will - beats me. I know I have an unrenewed mind. Romans chapter 12 verse 3 applies to the preceeding verses as much as it does to the following verses. -Keith McIntyre
CONS.ELF@AIDA.CSD.UU.SE (Ake Eldberg) (03/11/91)
Keith Mackintyre has some interesting thoughts on the Church and the Gulf war. He concludes that the Church (I guess that by this you mean the mainstream of Christian churches) usually agrees with what society does. This is very true here in Sweden, too. In the Gulf war, that tendency meant that the Church joined in the choir of those who chanted "peace!" with an address to both Saddam and president Bush. Myself, being a conscientious objector (this country has a conscript army -- I didn't serve), I find war very repulsive. And if it came down to me personally, I'm not sure I could bring myself to kill a human being. But the Gulf war, and the Iraki actions that started it, made me think. I would agree that a Christian should demonstrate God's love by not retaliating against those who hurt him, especially not if the hurt is inflicted *because* he is a Christian. But does that mean that we should lie down and let a dictator's army march wherever it wants? Or, put in a more secular way, is war so evil that it must be avoided at *all* cost? Think about it. What if the western powers had ignored Hitler's atrocities. The second world war might never have happened, but what would have become of the world? The nazi ideology would have plunged us down into barbarism. Without the war, it might not have killed 45 million people -- but it would have annihilated western civilization as we know it. I find it difficult to see how it could have been morally right in 1939 to chant "peace!", provided one had knowledge of the true nature of nazism. The cost of making war on Hitler was fearful, but it did save the world from total barbarism. At least I believe it did. Finally, let me quote a few lines from Winston Churchill's memoirs of the 2nd World War: "It is my purpose, as one who lived and acted in these days, to show how easily the tragedy of the second world war could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits of democratic states, unless they are welded into larger organisms, lack those elements of persistence and conviction which can alone give security to humble masses; how even in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster." Except for his military incompetence, Saddam is little different from Hitler. Is it really our duty as Christians, to allow such an antichrist to roam free? Isn't it rather our duty to defend the values we believe in, with force if necessary? Ake Eldberg [One of our real pacifists should really respond to this, and no doubt will, but the Christian pacifist position is not that we should ignore evil, but that it is possible to overcome it with good. The problem is that the process of doing so may take time, and in the process a lot of evil may happen. However the results may be more complete. That is, when force is used, there's a tendency for force to beget force. When peaceful means are used, this should not happen. There are certainly examples in India and the U.S. to show that peaceful resistance can work. The question is whether it can work against someone like Hilter. There are claims that there actually were some successes against the Nazis. There are all sorts of interesting complexities in trying to apply these ideas on the level of international politics. Like what do you do when the victims are a country where people do not have the necessary background and training to implement a course of peaceful resistence? It strikes me that this position is impractical, but impractical with a kind of grand daring that makes it sound like the sort of thing Christ might advocate. I dunno... --clh]