There is no one Christian view on war. It is impossible to extrapolate a universal theology from the context of the historic Jesus, a man executed by an occupation army in an exploited colony. The “Day of the Lord” trope in the Christian Testament and the apocalyptic fever dream of John of Patmos can be read as acts of divine violence, while the good news that the kin-dom of God is already present in the world seems to undermine that narrative.
Some Christians have embraced violence, committing acts of unimaginable heroism and of horrific evil, all in the name of God and country. Others have embraced non-violence, and even pacifism.
One of my personal heroes, St. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, struggled with violence both generally and in particularity, struggled with the morality of his small role in a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler, an act of individual violence intended to prevent a greater violence.
I wrestled with some of these issues in the early 1980s as a young soldier in a unit that suddenly found itself training to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield, not at all what I had intended when I enlisted.
I struggled with a desire for vengeance after the horrors of 9/11, the metallic smell, shared terror, and eerie silence of the walk from Lower Manhattan to my apartment in Queens. I wrestle with it still.
Like the late Israeli author Amos Oz, I identify as a “peacenik,” not as a pacifist. For me, doing limited violence to prevent greater violence seems justified when there is no other option, for it is always the “least among us” on the receiving end of state violence.
The “bad guys” are bad. Hamas is a genocidal terrorist group. Venezuela’s Maduro was a brutal autocrat. The Iranian regime exported terror and recently slaughtered thousands of its own people.
But what passes for “good guys” are far from good. Israel is engaged in genocide and ethnic cleansing. Saudi Arabia is an autocratic terror state. Our own regime is engaged in the ethnic cleansing of minority party enclaves, murdering our own citizens.
Trying to sort that all out requires gifts I do not have, and do not want. Dead is dead, whether it is Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis, or the dozens of elementary school girls killed in Minab, Iran on Saturday.
Rather than focus on the decision, I would like to focus on how the decision to start our most recent war was made. The arbitrary decisions of kings and popes gave birth to both democracy and congregationalism. In the case of our religious tradition, decision making through prayerful discernment as a community reflects the practice of the early church, and according to theologian Matthew Fox, ecumenical councils should still take precedence over papal bulls and encyclicals.
We believe we make better decisions together. Our nation’s founders, having rebelled against the arbitrary decisions of a British monarch, believed the same thing, and intentionally limited the power of the presidency. While the president has operational command of the military, the decision to go to war rests in the hands of Congress. Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, the many hearts and minds of Congress will always make better decisions together than the lone occupant of the White House.
Of course, theology aside, there is the simple fact that none of the wars the United States has fought in my lifetime met that Constitutional threshold, and none have gone well. In fact, we have lost every single one in one way or another, destabilizing entire regions, creating fertile ground for deadly terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
In the end, I oppose this week’s war, not because I love the Iranian terror state, but because I do not trust the people who made the decision, nor do I trust that they are competent to prosecute the war in a way that is just or even effective.
I pray, as always, for the victims, ours and theirs, as evil and powerful men throw missiles at one another.
In grief and prayer,
Gary