Near Emmaus

Category Archives: War


by 2 Comments

Israel’s wars

Thomas_Holy-War-in-BibleI am reading Holy War in the Bible: Christian Morality and an Old Testament Problem edited by Heath A. Thomas, Jeremy Evans, and Paul Copan. (It is one of three IVP Academic publications I am trying to read and review, so I’m moving slowly, a chapter at a time!) In Chapter 3 “Martial Memory, Peaceable Vision: Divine War in the Old Testament” the author, Stephen B. Chapman, makes the following statement (p. 64):

 ”…in order for Christ to appear in the fullness of time (Gal 4:4) it was necessary for God to elect and preserve the people of Israel. And apparently–this is the hard part–God was not able, given the violence of the world, to preserve Israel purely nonviolently although, even so, Israel’s history witnesses to and moves toward nonviolence as it moves toward Christ.”

Now, let me be clear, I share this quote not to reflect or comment on Chapman’s essay (which I found thought provoking). Often, when I share quotes from books I have had commenters berate the author (something that is not fair if the chapter itself has not been read) with no knowledge of the broader argument, so I am cautious about short excerpts like this one (i.e., I am not asking comments about Chapman’s essay as a whole), but I wanted to share it because it does present a common view among those who both recognize (1) Christ seems to have taught his disciples nonviolence (to some degree, even if one doesn’t affirm complete pacificity) and (2) YHWH engages and even commands warfare. Many solutions to this problem are seen as too close to Marcionism or more critical of the theology of the Hebrew Bible than even Jesus himself. Chapman’s statement seems to be an attempt to hold together a view of the Hebrew Bible as theologically authoritative alongside the acknowledgment that Jesus called his disciples to a higher ethic (maybe this falls under the paradigm of “progressive revelation”?), so it is worth sharing to hear your thoughts.

Again, the basic idea is this: does it satisfy to propose that YHWH did command violence and warfare in order to preserve Israel, but not as a basic affirmation of war in general, since Jesus (his Son) both taught peace and lived sacrificially or do you think this explanation is insufficient?

About these ads


by 9 Comments

Concerns with women in combat

Mujeres soldados from the Queen Sofia Museum (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Mujeres soldados from the Queen Sofia Museum (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Last night I was listening to Texas Public Radio (TPR) in the car with my wife. The host of the airing show was discussing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s decision to lift the ban on women serving in the infantry unites of the United States. One man called into the show to rant about the horror of women fighting on the front lines. He lamented the idea of a woman, out of bullets, struggling to fight a man using her bayonet. He feared that the physically bigger, stronger gender would overpower our women, and that the result would be horrible things like rape and other abuses. He asked if we want to imagine our daughters on this situation.

My wife is quite the feminist, and she grew tired of the man’s tone of voice and argument, so she turned off the show. I don’t have a daughter, but I did agree with the man that I wouldn’t want my daughter on the front lines of war. I would die inside if I heard that she had been captured, raped, and abused in other ways by enemy soldiers.

I agree with this man: I don’t want my daughter, or any woman I know, fighting in war, but my reasons are different: I hate the idea because my daughter would be a human, not because she would be a woman.

I don’t feel this way because of gender alone, though as a man there is an inherent desire to care for my grandmother, my mother, my wife, and any future daughters. I know that it is often true that men are physically larger, often stronger. If someone attacked a woman in my life, I would defend, and I would hope to disarm the perpetrator with as little harm done as possible to all parties. This is true of other scenarios as well though. If someone attacked my brother, a man much larger and stronger than me, I would feel an obligation to defend him. If I saw a man walking down the street who was physically assaulted I hope I would have the guts to help him. My concerns is defending the attacked, the vulnerable, the weak, the oppressed–not merely a person of a particular gender.

I think this man had begun to feel something right in the wrong way. He feared the idea of a daughter being harmed because he realizes war is horrible. As a man he has allowed himself to recognize that violence against a woman is disgusting. He doesn’t need to lose that sense of the grotesqueness of combat. Rather, he needs to realize that his understanding of masculinity is warped. Men shouldn’t be seen as warriors, primarily, whose deaths are acceptable, especially in the context of modern warfare.

From defense.gov

From defense.gov

What if we mourned the thought of a searing hot bullet penetrating the chest of our sons? What if were disgusted by the idea that our brothers might have shrapnel from an IED penetrate their skull? What if we called into radio shows to argue that our uncles shouldn’t have to live with the guilt of dropping a bomb on Baghdad, or catching an Afghan civilian in the cross-fire of war, or control a drone striking a small village in Pakistan.

I remember when my brother was nearing his high school graduation. He was prepared to enlist in the military. He was given a camp to which he would report, and there was some discussion that this would happen prior to his graduation ceremony. I prayed that he would be prevented, even though he was convinced that it was the most noble of vocations. A few weeks prior to the end of the school year he was playing football with some friends, and while running he collapsed to the ground, untouched. Apparently the cartilage in the area of his hip socket was problematic, and the ball slipped from the joint. This hip injury disqualified him from service. He was devastated, and I showed sympathy, but inside I was relieved. This relief had nothing to do with his gender. It had everything to do with my love for him, something that I would feel (ideally) toward my neighbors, and their children, as I imagine anyone being sent into war, whether a citizen of the United States, Mexico, France, Italy, Iraq, or China.

Many of us idealize men like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and if you are French, Napoleon Bonaparte, but I don’t think this is the ideal expression of genuine masculinity. As a Christian I find Jesus to be that person, one who was strong enough to realize his enemy was a victim too. I see in Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., people who followed the trajectory of Jesus’ life to the conclusion that active non-violence is more effective at ending wars than wars at ending wars.

I am a realist, which is why I am not fully anabaptistic (though, I want to be as anabaptistic as possible), so I don’t spend much time arguing that the eschatological hope of warlessness is something we can manufacture now. I live as a witness to that hope. I struggle to live a life of non-violence, as far as I am able, but I know there is a “not yet” to the “already, but not yet”. When you read this I hope you don’t advert your eyes from my argument because you don’t affirm “all, or nothing” pacifism. Even if you find nobility in war, we must admit, many of us have lost our ability to understand the gravity of death, especially those of us who are citizens of the United States. We have been handed a narrative that violence begets peace, and we have accepted it to the degree that we don’t ask if there is a way that is better. We expect our nation to be at war and we don’t ask if these wars are “necessary”, 0r “just”, anymore.

I hope with this decision to allow women to go to the front lines of combat that it will make some of us stop, reflect, and ask why we aren’t concerned about our men being placed in that same situation.


by 11 Comments

Wisdom from Boyd and Martin.

Greg Boyd (click for source)

I have been particularly impressed with two pastors who have addressed some weighty matter recently with wisdom.

First, I want to point to a sermon series by Greg Boyd where he seeks to reconcile the violent depictions of God in the Hebrew Bible with the God revealed to us through Christ. He argues that we should understand these depictions as “shadows” like the Law, Sabbath, holy feasts, and other things that pointed to Christ but that were incomplete without Christ. I am wrestling with his words, but I admit that they are very thought provoking. If you have the time watch/listen to “God’s Shadow Activity” and “Shadow of the Cross.”

Jonathan Martin (click for source)

Second, Jonathan Martin was late to the discussion around Doug Wilson’s use of words like “colonization” and “conquering” to describe the so-called “passive role” of women in sex, but he may have given one of the best responses. In “Gender, race, and Pentecost: the world has moved on.” he humbles us all.  Martin reminds us that God is doing amazing things around the world while we act as if we are the center of the Christian universe. These are three of my favorite  excerpts:

“The future has already arrived, and it has little to do with people like me.  In the global body of Christ, we have seen a remarkable shift in the balance of power.  Those of us in the west in general and North America in particular are used to being in the seat of power and influence; we are used to being those who shape global conversation in the Church.  Our sense of self-importance is innate.   Drunk on the rhetoric of America as a new Israel, our Christian faith a curious syncretism of sentimental piety and manifest destiny, we send missionaries into the world.  We ship our virtues and vices wholesale into all the earth.”

And

“I am a Pentecostal by heritage and tradition, but culturally I am one of the bourgeois pastors whose day might seem to be coming, but in many ways has already passed.  The whole white male, coffee-drinking, apple product-using, Coldplay-listening type.  It is a very small world that we live in that feels deceitfully large.  We have blogs, we write books, we talk about the most recent issue of Christianity Today.  So it is easy to think we are the center of the universe.”

And

“The average Christian in the world right now is an African or Latin American female in her early 20’s.  She doesn’t read our blogs and she doesn’t readChristianity Today.  She doesn’t know or care who I am and she never will.  The names Piper, Driscoll, Chan, Bell, Stanley, Warren—mean nothing to her.  Like most Pentecostal women coming into the kingdom around the world, words like “complementarian” and “egalitarian” are not in her vocabulary, nor Calvinism and Arminianism.  Unlike some of my brothers would lead you believe (where their lunch table is the only one that cares about Scripture and THE GOSPEL while anybody who believes differently from them in these tired conversations are flaming liberals), she takes the authority of the Bible very seriously.  But more importantly, she believes in the power of the Bible in ways that are incomprehensible even for our most rabid “conservatives.”  The western filter and language that frames these issues will not be determinative for her, unlucky as she is not to read our blogs.  She may well in end up leading a church one day where she preaches Jesus like a woman on fire and lays hands on the sick and watches God heal them, though this will surprise those Reformed colleagues who are sure all female church leaders have been trained by godless-Unitarian-lesbian-leftist-radical feminist-seminarians (she didn’t have access to seminary at all–unfortunately she has read the Acts of the Apostles).  Who knew?”

I recommend taking the time to listen to Boyd’s sermons and read Martin’s article. This is why the pastor-theologian is so valuable to the church. We need more people like them!


by 6 Comments

Citizenship in the Kingdom of God and the observance of Memorial Day.

Memorial Day is one of those holidays that can be quite complicated for Christians. We worship the God who will give us shalom and we serve his Son who called us to be heralds of peace. Yet as an American I live without fear of my temporal peace being immediately taken, in part because of the wars fought over the years by those who share my national identity. I am a citizen of the world’s strongest modern empire. I know other people (even other Christians) do not benefit from my nations “military industrial complex,” but I do.

Some Christians neutralize this tension by appealing to our “dual-citizenship” and (for Americans) the relative “good” done by our military. Kevin DeYoung’s post “Remembering Memorial Day” is a good example. He argues that “being a solider is not a sub-Christian activity;” “love of country can be a good thing;” and “the United States military has been a force for good in the world.” It is hard to image alternative outcomes to World War II without affirming some of DeYoung’s argument. As one person wrote in my Facebook feed this morning, “Even pacifists should be thankful for troops who have stood in harms way for their right to not take up a weapon.” Touche, I cannot deny that even as I am convinced that as a Christian it would be a violation of my conscience to serve in our military I know that the decision of others to do so is often motivated by good intentions, sometimes by their Christian beliefs. All things considered, rather I would be a citizen of the United States than any other country in the world. I admit that.

Obviously there are some concerning implications to DeYoung’s post–first and foremost the reality that many other nations with a large Christian population have made a similar argument over the last fifteen hundred years. I have had to ask myself, “What good is a Gospel that calls me to submit to a Messiah whose anti-violence message I can ignore when it conflicts with the interest of my nation?” I read about the World Wars and I am awestruck at the reality that many of the nations involved–Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, Poland, and others–were places where apparently the same deity was worshiped every Sunday even as we slaughtered each other.

Daniel Kirk’s post “Memorial Day” is a very good, short one on this subject. He writes these very important lines about being a Christian citizen of a free and peaceful nation:

“As Christians in the United States, we should be careful not to take for granted our share in this freedom. None of us worries about being killed on Sunday morning for joining in public worship.

“But this gratitude has its own danger.

“We might begin to believe that true freedom is gained by the shedding of the blood of our fallen soldiers. We might forget that no, the freedom we enjoy has been gained by us making the other guy shed more of his blood than we have shed of our own.”

Kirk reminds us that this comes very close to be the antithesis of the Christian narrative where “freedom” comes from Messiah giving his life for us. The same Messiah that calls us to peaceful resistance. The same Messiah that invites us to share his suffering and shame. Remember, he was a Jew among Jews who anticipated a violent Messiah, yet he turned his “war” against Satan and not the Romans who occupied his homeland. This is the other side of the challenge.

I am a citizen of the United States, but that is secondary. As the Apostle said, “But out citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3.20).” I pray for the day that he returns. I anticipate a time when we can have a peace far greater than the pax Americana, one from heaven–shalom.

Further reading:

- Rodney Thomas, On Memorial Day: Memory and Nonviolence

- Kurt Willems, Re-Membering Memorial Day


by 11 Comments

Stanley Hauerwas destroyed my hermeneutical paradigm.

In December 0f 2006 I finished my first semester of seminary studies, grabbed a ride to the airport, and flew to New York City to attend the wedding of a couple of my close friends. I gave myself one extra day of travel to explore Manhattan afterwards. As my wanderings around the Big Apple came to a close I stopped into a Boarders (remember those?) by Madison Square Garden to browse. I came across a series of essays titled The Hauerwas Reader edited by J. Berkman and M.G. Cartwright. This book is an anthology of  essays by the Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas.

The Hauerwas Reader

I was challenged by what I was reading, so much so that I bought the book. I resonated with Hauerwas’ arguments, even when I couldn’t fathom the implications. Yes, Christian should live as an alternative people. Yes, Christians should refuse to kill. Yes to this and yes to that! Now what am I supposed to do with these arguments?

I am asking this question still.

One essay destroyed my black-and-white hermeneutical paradigm. It humbled me. I realized that I had a lot to learn regarding interpreting the Scriptures. I have been on a quest to reconstruct my hermeneutical approach to Scripture ever since.  The article was a short, three page piece that Hauerwas had written for the Charlotte Observer in 1993 when one of the major national debates was over whether homosexuals could serve in the United States military. It was titled, “Why Gays (as a Group) are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group).” (You can access it through Google Books, pp. 519-521 here.)

In the opening paragraph Hauerwas wrote:

“I am ambivalent about recent discussions concerning gays in the military. I see no good reason why gays and lesbians should be excluded from military service; as a pacifist I do not see why anyone would want to serve. Moreover, I think it a wonderful thing that some people are excluded as a group. I only wish that Christians could be seen by the military to be as problematic as gays (p. 519).”

He proceeded to argue that we were excluding homosexuals from the military as a way of trying to restore some sense of morality in a world where our morality was already out of order. We didn’t know why we were doing what we were doing as a nation. We didn’t have sexuality “figured out” anymore than homosexuals did. Hauerwas wrote this stringing remark:

“As a society we have no general agreement about what constitutes marriage and/or what good marriages ought to serve. We allegedly live in a monogamous culture, but in fact we are at best serially polygamous. We are confused about sex, why and with whom we have it, and about our reasons for having children (pp. 519-520).”

Hauerwas argued that our moral confusion led to our grasping at straws, seeking a scapegoat, someone to call “immoral” so we would know how to define ourselves as “moral.” Then Hauerwas turned the tables on us Christians as he has righteously done for many years. He asked what it would look like if the Catholic tradition of “just war” was persuade with as much vigor as our stance against homosexuals in the military. He asked what it would look like if Christians were so dedicated to love and non-violence that the military considered Christians a threat to their aims just like they considered homosexuals a threat.

What if Christians prayed for peace? What if Christians refused to submit to anyone, even a general, whose orders were not aligned with the peace of Christ? What is Christians sought to witness to Christ at all times? He wrote this pithy paragraph:

“Finally, consider the problem of taking showers with these people. They are, after all, constantly going about the business of witnessing in hopes of making converts to their God and church. Would you want to shower with such people? You never know when they might try to baptize you (p. 521).”

Then he ended with these words:

“If gays can be excluded as a group from the military, I have hope that it could even happen to Christians. God, after all, has done stranger things in the past.

“However, until God works this miracle, it seems clear to me that gays, as a group, are morally superior to Christians (p. 521).”

I was a bit stunned. The thought came to mind, “Why do I judge homosexuals, especially Christians who struggle with homosexuality, yet honor Christians who serve in the military and possibly kill other humans?” Another thought came to mind, “Why does the church accept Christians in the military when Jesus spoke so straightforwardly about killing and violence? Why do we dedicate worship gatherings to honor military veterans, especially around the 4th of July? How have we explained away the call to ‘turn the other cheek’ and to never ‘return evil for evil’ so easily?”

If you were to ask me once every day for a week whether or not Christians should serve in the military I will say, “No!” three times; “No” twice; and “Maybe” twice. That is my pacifism.

What I have found most perplexing is how Christians can give so much energy to explaining why homosexuality is a sin while honoring Christians who participate in war as heroes saying nothing about the sins they commit. If you kill another person in Iraq you can come back to the United States and likely receive financial aid to attend almost any evangelical seminary around. This is not so if you write on your admissions essay, “I think I might be homosexual.”

I am not advocating the compatibility of Christianity with homosexuality. I am suggesting that our conversation on this topic is more rhetoric than substance. I agree with John Byron that this is a subject where we have shown little intellectual muscle strength, often fearing what might be said if we use the “h” word (see “Homosexuality: When will the church really have a conversation?”).

I see articles like James Emery White’s “The ‘No’ and ‘Yes’ to Culture Wars” where he advocates for Christians taking a political stance against same-sex marriage and I wonder why same-sex marriage is one of his “yes” answers while our nation’s military industrial complex is not?! Why is homosexuals aiming for a monogamous relationship worth our time, but the death of thousands of people (many who are not Christians, therefore damned in White’s worldview) isn’t?

I appreciate Christians like Tim Keller who are asking, “How do we acknowledge the image of God in all humans, including homosexuals ?” Yet I wonder what Keller says to an soldier home from duty about whether or not s/he could reenlist if s/he is a Christian (see “Tim Keller on how to treat homosexuals”)?

I am not asking Christians to affirm homosexuality as moral. I am asking why other matters of greater importance are ignored. What do we do with homelessness, disease, addiction, war, famine….on and on. Why is it “social gospel” for someone to make a call to care about these issues?

Christians who advocate military service for Christians often make arguments from silence like, “Well, John the Baptist and Jesus are depicted as meeting military personal and they never tell them to quit.” Sometimes I hear, “Yes, Jesus calls us to ‘turn the other cheek’ but [insert qualifications A, B, and C, including possible qualification D regarding "practicality in our sinful world."]! What if a Christian advocates for monogamous homosexuality by saying, “Well, in Romans 1 Paul isn’t writing about loving, monogamous homosexual relationships because he had never seen one.”? We respond, “Oh c’mon, you can’t argue from silence when we have so many clear passages that teach against it.” Or if someone says, “Yes, homosexuality was wrong back then, but we are in a different cultural milieu!” we accuse them of relativizing Scripture. God forbid they appeal to being “practical in our sinful world.”

It may be possible to affirm Christian military service while denying Christians being homosexual, but many of the arguments I hear are selective at best, disingenuous at worst. I wish more Christians would be smacked by someone like Stanley Hauerwas and forced to ask themselves, “What is my hermeneutical paradigm for saying biblical prohibition A no longer applies while biblical prohibition B does.” I think we have a long, long way to go to say we have done the hard exegetical and theological work to which John Byron calls us. I think many of us might discover our application of Scripture is already relativized by the majority culture. It is kind of like this comic:


by 21 Comments

Is “the greater good” a starting point for thinking about morality?

On this blog I have been posting quite a lot on morality, reasoning about morality, and behaving morally. I admit that this is inspired by it being an election year. We Christians in the United States are asked to participate to some extent in the rule of our government by means of voting. We don’t have direct control (and some may argue much control), but we do have some. When we vote we chose people who may have a say in how our nation practices abortion, economics, public sexuality, social services, warfare, and much more. Our efforts to think clearly about tough subjects is virtuous in my estimation because “ignorance is bliss” is a lie.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on making decisions regarding morality from the starting point of “the greater good”. I don’t mean “the greatest good for the most” like utilitarianism argues, per se. Rather, let’s ponder two examples:

(1) If you have a Jewish family in your home in WWII Germany and some Nazi soldiers come to your door asking whether or not you have Jews in your home are you obligated to preserve their lives or tell the truth? Some argue that you should tell the truth because it is your moral responsibility. If the Nazi soldiers kill the Jews this is not something you have done, but something they did. Yet it is quite difficult to make this sequence all about the autonomous behaviors of the various people involved. Many realize in their gut that there is something intuitive about saving human life even if it means lying.

Could we suggest that this isn’t about “doing the lesser evil” (i.e. lying), or pure autonomy (i.e. what the soldiers do is their responsibility alone), but “the greater good”. In other words, could we argue that saving life makes the lie a good deed? If we were to lie for our own sake to gain or defraud others this would make a lie an evil deed, but this lie was to (A) save life and (B) prevent another from taking life–both good things.

(2) If someone enters your home seeking to harm your wife and children and you harm them (even kill them if it seems that murder was their intent) could it be argued that murder for many reasons is evil, but in this case it was good because it saved the life of those for whom you are most responsible? Obviously, you will notice that this scenario shifts a bit because your action is technically the same as the action you sought to prevent (taking human life) and objectively you chose one human’s life over another.

What do you think? In scenarios 1 and 2 does a “greater good” emerge? Does it nullify the deed that would have been evil (a lie, a killing) because it is submerged into the good action? Can we think about morality this way or do you see potential problems? 

__________

Some who have discussed the merits of Christians in the military with me may see this as a softening of my stance, but I maintain that it is unwise for a Christian to give permission to the state to control their decision making to the extent that a soldier must submit to the state. On the other hand, this may allow for Christian participation in law enforcement where you usually are not placed in a position where a superior asks you to kill another human on the mere authority of the superior’s position.



by 90 Comments

Is your “pro-life” ethic internally consistent?

...or is it?

Every election season one of the subjects discussed most frequently by evangelicals is abortion. Most evangelicals (and Roman Catholics) stand against the legalization of abortion. Yet this isn’t the only “pro-life” issue worth considering. There are at least two other things impacted by whom one votes into various political positions: (1) warfare and (2) capital punishment.

Today’s question is simple: “Is your ‘pro-life’ ethic internally consistent?” In other words, do you know why you are against abortion, but OK with capital punishment and war or against war and capital punishment, but OK with abortion? Please explain your thought process on this important matter!

Of course, other matters could be considered “pro-life” like various environmental policies that may impact the lifespan and quality of life for people in particular regions. If you want to mention your views on such matters you’re welcome to do so in the comments section.