Jesus and War

Part of the message which accompanied the birth of Jesus as recorded in scripture is, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Jesus was called the Prince of Peace. "Blessed are the peacemakers" is one of the beatitudes. James 3:17 says, "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere."

In that context and in the spirit of the season, I'm going to offer another look at two of the comments I made on my blog on November 30. I posited that "responding to violence with violence creates war," and "responding to evil with evil creates all manner of evil." Instead, I suggested we "respond to violence with peace," and "respond to evil with good." I believe those statements to be in line with New Testament teachings.

My original intent in the post -- there were other items about fear, anger, unforgiveness and hate -- was to a greater extent how we deal with people around us on a one-to-one basis, personal interactions (humans solving problems directly with other humans around us) and to a lesser extent solving international problems (which could be called humans allegedly trying to solve problems with the human race), even the part about responding to violence with violence causing war. There are such 'wars' going on in families and communities every day. 

I can understand why the comments quickly went to things such as, "Would love have stopped WWII? Thank goodness not everyone waited for Jesus to stop Hitler. Somebody had to step up to the plate and fight the war" and "Turning the other cheek will only empower ISIS. They must be systematically destroyed."

I'm not trying to create another discussion along those lines. I want to be clear that while I do believe our country has become too eager to use military force, I cannot rightly call myself a pacifist. I do envision scenarios where I would take up arms to save my family or defend myself or my country. However, I also think the principles Jesus spoke of would 'work' on a grander scale of nations solving their problems with other nations. What we're doing now isn't working. I would like to give the 'Jesus solution' a try, even though there are powerful people who have greed as their only god who will do their best to make sure peace will never be given a chance.

But here is my point for now: Because of our willingness to intervene militarily it is one more reason why the U.S. government cannot lay claim to the title of 'Christian nation.' (Judaic law might come close to what we follow because we definitely practice an eye for eye, or rather more like one thousand eyes for each eye.) If, as U.S citizens, we believe war is the answer that's a separate issue from trying to make Jesus be the declarer of war. 

Christians can and do serve in the military. It is reassuring that in a complicated world there are men and women who serve their country with character, dignity and honor. Sometimes decisions are made by individuals that none of us would ever wish to make. By heavily intertwining a religious view (the spirit) with a worldview (the flesh) when it comes to war, I think we must have surely made it more difficult, not less, for many members of the military. I can't speak for them, only to say my father served in WWII and I know he carried many burdens his whole life because of it. It is individuals who suffer when governments make decisions which require military intervention.

I'm not trying to over-simplify any difficult matter, but I do believe that trying to justify war by saying that Jesus would gladly declare it, seems to me to create a perverted view of the Gospel which  has extended to many other areas in society. If we can convince ourselves that Jesus is a fan of war as the 'go-to' action, without keeping his greater message in context and uppermost in our minds, we can convince ourselves that Jesus approves of almost anything that we think is the right course of action, no matter how many people are hurt in the process. 

That kind of thinking doesn't lead to peace in our lives, peace in our communities or peace on Earth.