War and Peace

Steve Brown January 10th, 2008

As we move into this election year and Christians are considering the candidates for President, more and more, I keep getting asked questions like, "How are Christians supposed to reconcile Jesus’ message of peace with the fact that we live in a nation at war?"

That question makes an assumption that there is a disconnect between being a Christian and participating and supporting a war. There is a sense in which that is true. But there is also a disingenuous side to that disconnect.

The peace that Jesus gives is, first, existential. When Jesus says that he gives us his peace, he is talking about a reality for those who walk with him. However, it is possible for a soldier fighting for a just cause to sense that peace on the battlefield. One must be very careful not to miss the difference between a personal promise and ethic and a national promise and ethic.

I’m attracted to pacifism and that is primarily because of Jesus. I believe that human beings (me included) are radically and pervasively infected with depravity (“There is none righteous, no not one”) and, understanding that, war is always problematic for the Christian.

However, I do not believe in moral equivalency. For instance, Churchill and Hitler were both sinners, of course, but to be so blind as to miss the difference is shallow. In a dark world there is real evil and real good even if both are tainted with the other. In this kind of world, there is a necessity for hard choices and, therefore, the necessity for police, courts and armies. That is necessary because we don’t live in a perfect world and Christ has not yet established his kingdom.

I have a biblical and moral obligation to protect the innocent, those who can’t protect themselves, and my family, and to do that by whatever means are necessary.

I realize that a Christian owning a gun (or even a bow and arrow, for that matter) is a moral dilemma and that the “macrocosm” of that “microcosm” (i.e. war) is an even greater dilemma, but it is so important that Christians think through the issues and that they do it without clichés and without a superficial understanding of what the Scriptures really teach.

Now, when one gets into the specifics of which war to fight, how to go about obtaining justice, what kind of force should be used and how in particular one should protect the innocent, the way gets kind of muddy. (“The devil is in the details.”) Someone has said that simplicity on this side of complexity isn’t worth dink, but that simplicity on the other side of complexity is incredibly valuable. I sometimes fear that Christians (both pacifist Christians and “kill the enemy for Jesus” Christians) have never taken the time to go through the complexity. Jesus said that we were to be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

That’s not an easy thing to do and, if it seems to be, we haven’t understood.

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