Christian Reflections in a Time of War

“We need to support our brave troops at a time like this, so we shouldn’t criticize our government or our president. Besides, our president is doing what Scripture says he is supposed to do: he is “bearing the sword” to punish evil (Romans 13:1-4). If terrorism and insurgency aren’t evil, what is? If the degrading of the bodies of our troops and the recent beheading of an American citizen don’t deserve strong response, what does? It takes courage and strength to stand up to evil.
The fact is, we were attacked, brutally and viciously, on September 11. We needed to respond strongly and decisively, and that is what we have done. The enemies of freedom want to destroy our way of life and bring the world into chaos and tyranny; even if the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate our actions, what we are doing is courageous and good for everyone – even those who criticize us. By fighting terrorists and extremists, we are making the world safer for everybody.
Yes, some mistakes have been made, but our mistakes are few and minor compared to the atrocities committed by our enemies. Emphasizing our mistakes, including the isolated misdeeds of a few prison guards at Abu Ghraib, simply plays into the hand of our enemies; besides, we’re dealing honestly and openly with any problems that have occurred. America is a beacon of light and justice in our world.
It’s useless to complain that we are losing respect in the world. In the long run, people will respect our strength. Right now, other countries are jealous of us because they are poor by comparison, but it is not our fault they haven’t been blessed as we are, nor have they learned to benefit from free enterprise and Democracy as we have. We have to go it alone, because we are the leaders of the free world.
Our president is an evangelical Christian and he applies Biblical principles to his presidency. We should pray for him and defend him from critics – not criticize him. Remember President Clinton? Aren’t we grateful to have a godly man like President Bush in office at a time like this?”
These days I hear many of my good Christian friends say things very much like this, and many of our most respected leaders too. They’re good people, and I respect them, and I wish very much I could fully agree with them. They’re sincere and they’re trying to do what’s right, and if I even partially disagree, no one could blame them for thinking I’m crazy or deluded. I have little hope of persuading them to see things differently; some are quite set in their ways, and since nearly all of their friends hold similar opinions, the peer pressure against rethinking these matters is very strong.
Meanwhile, I awaken in the middle of the night (or more often, wake up early with anxious thoughts), thinking and praying about what’s happening to our world and our country and our Christian community during this time of war, wondering how I should respond.
I have lived nearly my whole life just outside of Washington, DC. International news is our local news here. In this political environment, I am well aware that the issues we face are complex, frighteningly complex: the easy answers and sound-bite-politics that we hear so often (both from the left and from the right) seldom do justice to the complexities of our world. Anything I say may be seen as equally simplistic by others. There’s always a “yes, but…” that can be added.
It would be easiest under these circumstances to remain silent and pretend to agree. It would also be relatively easy to express my deep feelings and concerns about current events in such a way that people who already agree with my conclusions would cheer and applaud. “Preaching to the choir” is a cake walk compared to communicating effectively with people whose deeply-held views may need to be challenged.
It is my goal to communicate with people whose opinions resonate with the first four paragraphs of this article. It is for them that I would like to offer my perspectives as a sincere and deeply concerned Christian in America.
First, I should say that I agree with some things expressed in those four italicized paragraphs. For example, we should not harshly criticize our country and our president. Part of this is simply a matter of “doing unto others.” As a pastor, I am routinely criticized by people who are certain they know more than I do. Meanwhile, I am often privy to dozens of facts and confidences of which they are unaware, and if they knew and saw what I do, they wouldn’t be so critical. I simply must endure their criticism (some of which is harsh and mean-spirited). Their criticism doesn’t make my job any easier, nor does it increase the likelihood that I’ll do better in the future – rather, the reverse. So harsh criticism is not good for anyone. That’s why I believe that harsh criticism of our leaders can be ultimately counterproductive, even if our leaders are deeply and dangerously wrong. So, I am against criticizing our president with harshness, insult, or arrogance. However, that cannot mean we aren’t allowed to raise questions, express concerns, or even voice strong disagreement – as long as we do so respectfully and with appropriate humility, understanding, and charity.
In addition, I agree that we must support our troops. Nearly all of them are fine human beings, truly the pride of our nation. They are our daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers and neighbors and friends. Supporting them means caring for them, praying for them, and doing our best to make sure that they are not put in harm’s way without good cause. Sometimes, as many of us remember from Viet Nam, the best way to support our troops is to ask hard questions of our government and oppose decisions of our government if those decisions send our troops into harm’s way without good cause, or for less than a noble cause, or without proper planning. I understand: we are worried that if we bring uncomfortable questions and concerns to light, we may make it seem that some of our troops have suffered and died in vain, thus dishonoring their sacrifice. But if we don’t bring these questions and concerns to light, we risk the possibility that more will die in vain. So, our failure to ask needed questions and bring needed discussion into the light could lead to the deaths of more of our sons and daughters, friends and neighbors … and it could also result in the killing of innocent people in Iraq and elsewhere.
What results and risks are worth the sacrifice of our sons and daughters? If we sacrifice more and more of them without carefully weighing our options, and if we push ahead even though it means that many innocent civilians will also die, what would that say about us as a people? What kind of nation, what kind of people, would we be becoming? Wouldn’t supporting our troops require us to face these frightening possibilities honestly and soon, so we can proceed prudently?
Third, I agree that we must pray for our president and other leaders. Scriptural teaching and common sense require us to do no less. We have a special obligation to pray for our president because he identifies himself as a brother in Christ, as an Evangelical Christian. Unfortunately, I have found through the years that being a Christian, even an Evangelical one, doesn’t guarantee against being wrong. It hasn’t done so for me, as my critics know, nor has it done so for anyone else. Being saved, baptized, sincere, or even Spirit-filled is not a short cut to being smart or right or wise. Rather, Scripture tells us, the wisdom that comes from God often comes through suffering and repentance (which means rethinking past actions). Furthermore, God’s wisdom is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, and without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy (James 1:2-8; 3:13-18). What’s more, it listens to counsel from others. So, praying for our president is a requirement, but challenging his policies, offering godly counsel, and even confronting him when necessary may also be required of us, if we are to be faithful to our Christian brother.
Great leaders through Biblical history, like King David for example, have made great mistakes and needed to be counseled or confronted (as the prophet Nathan did for David). Being chosen by God didn’t give Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Saul, David, or Solomon (or even the Apostle Peter for that matter) a carte blanche to be above needing counsel and confrontation at times. Those who think they stand above the need for counsel are warned in Scripture that they too can fall, and if they are proudly overconfident about their standing, it is certain they will fall. So, yes, we must pray for our president, and we must speak the truth to and about him and his policies.
Even in his own political party, many are raising questions and concerns. But the Christian community seems oddly silent. Why is this? What does it say about us that we are so hesitant to question our current president? Before I can say anything about our president and his policies, I feel I must say something about us.
If I were to go to the heart of my concern and try to express it in one sentence, here’s what I would say: Many Christians in America seem to have confused Caesar and Christ. We seem to have confused a “kingdom of this world” – our nation – with the kingdom of God. The will and interests of our nation have become associated with the will and values of God.
American Christians have a long tradition of doing so. Since colonial days, we’ve seen ourselves as a beacon of light, the leader of the free world, the New Israel, and other similar notions. “Manifest Destiny” was a self-affirming doctrine promulgated by many Christians in our early years, and our president seems to echo this belief. He said recently, for example, “The advance of freedom … is the calling of our country.” He has defined America’s mission to “rid the world of evil.” “This call of history,” meaning the call to rid the world of terrorism through military action, he said in the 2003 State of the Union address, “has come to the right country.” In September of 2002, he said, “This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind…. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.” For of all of us who know our Bibles, our President is associating America pretty closely with Jesus. This seems to be what he believes. And perhaps many of us do too?
This belief is comforting. It makes us feel proud and blessed. It gives us great confidence. But it also makes us dangerous. Our ancestors who believed they had a divine mandate (Manifest Destiny) didn’t think twice about stealing lands from the Native Peoples or First Nations here. Even when we made treaties, we broke them. Too few Americans know that some of our leaders practiced intentional ethnic cleansing and even biological warfare aimed at genocide. (If you don’t know about these ugly parts of our history, you should learn.) Meanwhile, Manifest Destiny made it easier for white Christians to buy slaves and treat Blacks as inferior – right up into my lifetime. In South Africa, there was until the last decade extensive theological justification for Apartheid based on a doctrine very much like Manifest Destiny. Believing that God is on your side, and you on God’s, gives you confidence – but it may make you less open to reflection and second-thoughts; it can make you more bold and less wise.
When our president and secretary of defense speak of other nations as evil and depict our enemies as terrorists who seek to destroy “our way of life,” they are following a long tradition of leaders – good and bad – who dehumanize and demonize enemies. Their persuasive speech has been used to muster support for centuries. Unfortunately, all of these leaders who have asserted their nation’s moral superiority have been proven wrong by history. Their nations may have been great and good at one point, maybe even better than their enemies as they asserted, but often their downfall came quickly. Eventually, their superiority tempted them to pride, which goes before a fall. Eventually, what they called liberation of others proved to be domination and oppression, and their so-called evil enemies proved to be not much different from their own people. Perhaps our president will be the first one to be right when he demonizes others and praises America, but I for one do not believe it.
When our leaders speak of liberating others through conquest and occupation, they sound a lot like many powerful leaders of the past who dominated people but called themselves benefactors and liberators. Jesus spoke of these kinds of leaders; educated by Jesus, we should be sensitive to the ways of “the rulers of the Gentiles.” If Moses could be defended by God against critics again and again, but eventually even Moses could overstep his proper authority so that God would have to rebuke him, shouldn’t we be on alert that our president – even if he is an Evangelical Christian – could also overstep his authority? After all, he may be a good man, but he’s no Moses. We’re on high alert about terrorism, but we do not seem to be on any alert about our president or our whole nation overstepping proper bounds, overreacting, etc. We are aware of the dangers abroad, but less aware of the dangers at home.
Our previous president had a love affair with a young Jewish intern. This was despicable to many of us, disgusting, dishonoring. Our current president also has a kind of special affection – with Evangelical Christianity. Many of us have an infatuation with him that may eventually hurt us as much as that young intern was hurt after her infatuation. Our current president certainly knows how to use our Evangelical language to woo us. In his State of the Union address in 2003, for example, he said, “The need is great. But there’s power, wonder-working power … in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.” He was borrowing from a popular hymn well known to nearly all Evangelical Christians, but he substituted “the goodness … of the American people” for “the blood of the Lamb.” Does that turn of phrase bother you? I do not believe the president meant to idolize the American people and imply that we are the world’s redeemers – that would be a blasphemous assertion for a Christian to make! I do not believe he had evil intent. I believe he very sincerely feels that America is in some way God’s chosen nation, so our hearts are a redemptive force in the world, like “the blood of the Lamb.” I believe he is sincere and well-meaning in these kinds of statements, but I also believe he is dangerously wrong. And if we do not see and name the danger, I fear we will become unwitting conspirators with it.
I am writing in the days after the release of photographs from Abu Ghraib prison. The horrible abuse of prisoners by our soldiers in Iraq tells us something – something that we may not want to hear. It tells us that Americans are simply human beings. Along with heroism and sacrifice, we are capable of terrible mistakes and unjustified violence, even torture. We are not above committing deplorable acts and violating our own high standards. In our zeal to do good (by obtaining needed intelligence from enemies, to save the lives of our soldiers), we may do terrible evil. We are capable of seeking a short-term advantage (brutally treating prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions) that creates horrific long-term consequences (when our enemies decide to do unto ours as we have done to theirs). In our desire to achieve good ends (to avoid another terrorist attack on our homeland), we may be corrupted by evil means.
I know this is hard for people to imagine, but I beg you to try: what if our decision to invade and bomb Iraq in the first place was an excessive and premature use of violence, no less justifiable before God than the actions of our soldiers in Abu Ghraib? What if our desire to do good (protect ourselves from further terrorist attacks) put us in temptation’s way to overreact and do evil? What if our violation of the will of the United Nations was no less egregious, with no less significant long-term consequences, than our soldiers’ violation of the Geneva Conventions? What if these recent prison abuse incidents are not anomalies – but are rather a warning, a mirror in which we can see what we are in danger of becoming, what we have to some degree already become?
Already, in the midst of tepid or qualified apologies, I hear ourselves defending ourselves. We try to push all the blame on a few individuals acting alone, denying that our system was in any way to blame. Obviously, the behavior of the offending prison guards was indefensible, but I do not believe all these people who abused prisoners were monsters. Rather, I believe they were normal people caught up in a frenzy of group-think that clouded their judgment. I also believe nearly all of America has been caught up in a similar kind of judgment-clouding frenzy in reaction to the September 11 attacks – less dramatic or obvious, but no less real – and far more consequential. Just as the prison guards did not fully realize at the time what horrible things they were doing (otherwise, why take photographs?), neither have we yet been able to see ourselves and our actions as seen by others – and perhaps by God.
I hope you will consider this: Scripture tells us how dangerous revenge is, but I fear that many of us have been intoxicated by it. Scripture tells us how fear should not dominate our lives, but I am sad to say that I see our nation as being driven – not by faith, not by love, not by hope – but by fear. The fear of being attacked again has become, I think, almost like a demon possessing us as a nation. Under its influence, we are liable to do some shameful things. It is becoming clear that we already have done them, and worse things may be on the way.
The Psalmist said: Some trust in horses, and some in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7, echoed in Isaiah 31:1). People who do not know the Lord may be excused for trusting in horses and chariots. But I sense in the rhetoric of many a radio/TV preacher and even in some of my personal friends – people who know and love the Lord – a very high degree of reliance on the technology and weapons of war. They imply that I’m naïve (or not living in the right Dispensation) for believing that trust in God should make me less dependent on tanks and bombers (our modern-day horses and chariots), or less eager to use them. Perhaps they’re right. But perhaps not.
My parents taught me that when I do wrong, I should admit it. I should feel sorry for it, and confess it, without excuses and self defense, and I should seek to make restitution. I listened to our president when the news of the prisoner abuse came out, and I didn’t hear a clean apology. I heard minimization, assigning of blame to a few, and defense of our overall strategy. A few days later, it got a little better. But something inside me asks this question: what if we are far more wrong than we realize? What if we have indeed made a series of serious misjudgments, mistakes, overreactions, hasty actions, and God-dishonoring actions? Will we defend ourselves? Or will we face our wrongs and humbly repent? Will we cover our sins and still hope to prosper? Or will we rather seek to walk in the light and learn from our mistakes?
A friend at my church once told me, “Brian, I think you’re right about 85% of the time. That’s what makes you dangerous. People will trust you for the 85% so they won’t question you for the 15%. Your leadership depends on you having the humility and second thoughts to be on guard for the 15%.” Could our nation and its leaders be in a similar situation?
Yes, we must support our troops. Yes, we must avoid becoming critical and harsh and judgmental of our leaders. But is it possible that the richest and most powerful nation in the world could at some point become proud and abuse its power? Isn’t it more than possible? Isn’t it highly likely? And if possible or even likely, shouldn’t we do some sincere and prayerful soul-searching – and if necessary, repenting?
Yes, terrorism is indeed evil. But isn’t history full of examples where people who were wronged by a real evil responded in such a way as to become evil themselves? Isn’t this a possibility for us? Wouldn’t it be foolish to hastily dismiss such a danger in our situation?
What kind of nation do we want to become? Are we happy about what we are becoming now? Are we proud and at peace about the kinds of torture that have been used to extract intelligence? What are the long-term consequences of our new policy of pre-emptive war? We hated it when our innocent civilians were killed in the Twin Towers, but how many innocents have we killed in Iraq? How many children, mothers, grandmothers? Are we keeping count? Is there any point at which we might go too far? If we callously say, “These things happen in war,” if we dehumanize these beloved family members as “collateral damage,” aren’t we sounding like the very people we characterize as evil terrorists? Wasn’t our “shock and awe” campaign a kind of terror campaign that put thousands of innocent people in harm’s way, so we could force our will in the world?
Will it be easier to do some needed soul-searching when we have gone farther down our current path, or will it become harder the farther and faster we proceed? When should we begin asking some hard questions of ourselves and our leaders? Would before the next election be the best time, or should we wait, and why?
When I was in elementary school, there was an overweight boy. Let’s call him Evan. He was a nice kid. I liked him. But other kids mercilessly teased him. “Fatty!” they called him. “Tubb-o-lard!” they called him. “Doughboy!” they said. They thought they were funny, but what they did was wrong, so wrong, and Evan was deeply hurt. Over the years, Evan gradually changed. He went from being the overweight boy others teased to the big bully who teased others. His size, which had been the source of his shame, became his weapon, and he learned very literally to throw his weight around. His reaction was understandable, but I always wished he could have found another way to respond. Becoming more like the people who were so mean to him seemed like a very sad strategy, leading to a sadder victory. And I fear that we are Evan.
(To be continued