Every Day our news papers feature stories about Afghanistan. Each
day we get new reports of American deaths in that wild country of drugs and
terrorism.
The chief of the US operations has suggested an
increase in troops. Our president is
collecting information and seeking to make a wise input about a decision. The
various parties are lining up on political sides. But what is the Christian response to all
this.
It is my conviction that we not turn to Fox News for the
answers; or MSNBC, or the Republican Party or to the Democrats. It seems to me, that if we are to be serious about the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the
authority of Scripture in our life, then we must take seriously the love ethic
of Jesus.
How does this apply when it comes to the decision our
president faces about mounting violence in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan.
Some Christians today say we should be Pacifists. This was
in fact the earliest application of Jesus’ teaching on love in the first,
second, third and fourth centuries of the Christian Church. But as the
Christian Church continued to grow and particularly after the fall of Rome in 410 AD, Christianity
became the dominant faith in the Western World. At that time there became a
significant discussion within Christianity about the possibility for Christian
citizens to serve in a national militia.
In the years between 413 and 426AD Saint Augustine of Hippo in
northern Africa, wrote a massive work dealing with Christian social and civil responsibility
in the midst of a vastly changing world.
His writings are collected in one of the greatest books of all time called
The City of God. It’s a tough read for the modern person, but it contains some
of the most important Christian thinking on the practical application of the
love Ethic for complex decision making.
In the 13th century another one of the great minds in
history, Thomas Aquinas, wrote another book called Summa Theologica. In his work, he advanced the discussion of
war and peace that Augustine had introduced.
Early Protestant thinkers like Luther and Calvin also wrote
on issues of war and peace; grappling with how to apply the Love Ethic of Jesus,
always trying to show a Reverence for Life. They have all contributed to what
is today called the Christian theology
for a Just war.
It seems to me that we as Christians have two main options for
applying the 6th commandment in our attitudes on war. We either need to take a Pacifist Stance or
we can be guided in our thinking by the philosophy of Just War Theory that
thoughtfully applies the Love Ethic with a deep reverence for life.
In these weeks, as Barack Obama considers an escalation of
our war in Afghanistan,
I want to share a few ideas of Just War Theory.
Love should always be the central concern in going to war.
One of the things that Augustine pointed out, is that going
to war seldom seems like the loving thing to do, but in fact ther may be a time
when love demands war. To illustrate his
point Augustine asks readers to consider a man hitting a boy and another man caressing a boy. The first case seems bad, but the man might be
a father lovingly disciplining his son; the second case seems good, but the man
might be a child molester. Augustine then argues that war may be the Just and right
thing to do, although it does not immediately appear to be so.
Here are the components of Just War theory
- A just war can only be waged as a last resort. Augustine,
and Christian theologians who followed him, have argued that non-violent
options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified. This is why
we give such honor to men like Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, and to
Nelson Mandela as he got older. These
are people who put their lives in danger, by NOT FIGHTING.
- A war is just, only if it is waged by a legitimate authority.
This was one of the sticky issues that the American Patriots
diligently sought to establish when they were writing their Declaration of
Independence. They knew they had to
distinguish themselves as a legitimate authority in order to justify their
violence against the authority of the British Empire.
- A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered.
For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a
just cause. When
Japan attacked America,
and when al Queda attacked us on 9-11, these were clear wrongs that needed to
be defended against. But a just war
should not be mere retaliation. It must
be justice oriented. This leads to a
fourth point of just war thinking.
- A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable
chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not
morally justifiable. To hurt someone
else just because they have hurt you, with no sense that this leads to any form
of resolution is not morally defensible.
This leads to the next point.
- The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. Augustine wrote: "'We
[ONLY] go to war that we may have peace.
More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable
to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought. Some
look at the war of 1812 as a senseless and immoral war that cost America and England lives with no real
advancement of peace. But others argue
that the War established a stronger independence from Great Brittan and a
deeper peace that helped establish a relationship between the two nations that
has grown into a deep friendship. Is
peace the goal in every aspect of war?
This question seems paradoxical, but it is fundamental to a Christian
ethic.
- The violence used in the war must be proportional to the
injury suffered. This point has been at the heart of many of the debates
regarding the Israeli and Palestinian debate.
When a Palestinian mob throws rocks that kill a couple soldiers, and
then Israel
launches an offensive that uses American jets and helicopters to wipe out an
entire village killing scores of civilians, this is an offence to the sense of
proportionality that many people have.
Yet at the same time, you have an adopted philosophy of Palestinian
leaders who are aligned with other strong and hostile nations, all who are
dedicated to the complete annihilation of Israel. What is responsible proportionality is a very
complex question. But it is a question
that should be continually addressed in order to maintain ethical
sensitivities.
- The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants
and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every
effort must be taken to avoid killing innocent people. I believe that one of the saddest developments
in the theories of war was that promoted and advanced by William Tecumseh
Sherman during the Civil War.
He and the other generals in the north and in the south, did
their best to keep the war contained to combatants. At the beginning of the civil war, picnickers
would even come out and watch the battles in the safety of the hillsides. But as the war drug on, and Generals like
George McClelland refused to fully engage in all out battle, Abraham Lincoln
lost his patience and insisted on extreme measures. Tecumseh complied. Anyone who has seen Gone with the Wind, knows
what he did.
He burned Atlanta,
and he utterly destroyed the civilian infrastructure all the way to the sea. This
has become a fundamental war principal ever since. We see it with the Napalm bombs of Vietnam and the
Shock and Awe of Iraq. Just war teaching
says that this is tragedy that must be mitigated as much as possible. The innocent must be protected.
This is just war theory in a nutshell. But as you can tell, when you start thinking
about these things, it can become very complex. In my way of thinking, we have to work diligently to apply the Love Ethic as we grapple with all these issues.
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