I originally wrote this as a response to post on Seth's blog, but I also thought I would share it here....
Seth I have been giving your writings some though. I believe that Jesus was in general an advocate of solving problems by peaceful means. What I think is that God/Jesus instead of calling us to be all one way or all the other, I think that we are called to be situationally appropriate when it comes to conflict. From what I have read Jesus doesn’t really approach the topic of war specifically. I am aware of the situation in the garden when He reproaches Peter for defending him violently. But he also earlier had advised them to take a sword with them. Take Gandhi or Martin Luther King, for instance their version of non-violent civil disobedience worked because they were dealing with governments that were for the most part humane, if misguided. But Gandhi’s approach would probably not have worked in the context of Nazi Germany, or even internally with someone like Saddam Hussein. Take someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer for instance; he was a well-known pacifist who was taking cues from Gandhi. He eventually came to the conclusion that the only way to deal with Hitler was through direct violent action.
I believe that this carries over to present day in that violence on the personal level should be situationally appropriate. Obviously waving a gun at Seth because he gets my order wrong at the burger king would not be appropriate, but if I am faced with having to use violence to protect family, friends, or innocents, I have no problem using force in that situation and feel that it would appropriate
I believe that war should always be the last option considered. I personally have some reservations about the Iraq War and how it has been executed. But I also believe that the Iraqi people have a chance to be better off because of it. The problem in Iraq now is that we are stuck there; it would be unbelievably irresponsible for us to leave now. We need to stay there and finish what we have started, I believe that it would a greater sin to leave now, with the nation still in the chaos we created.
2 comments:
Good stuff Brian- I hate war- hate violence- but answers rarely come in black and white.
Brian,
I agree, I think wars need to be evaluated for morality on a war by war basis. God is not 100% opposed to war, see Joshua, Kings, and Chronicles. I believe WWII was a moral war. The problem with evaluating the morality of a war is that it is best done when the war is over - not very helpfull when someone is trying to decide to participate or not.
I think the same applies to personal situational violence. I believe the Bible allows for self defence, defence of loved ones, and the defence of innocents. But this can get complicated. Some Christians think its OK to bomb abortion clinics because it's an act of defence of innocents.
The best option I can think of for war and violence is preemptive revival.
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