The
author, David Reinhard, a good friend, is the
"token" conservative on the Portland
Oregonian Newspaper's Editorial Staff! He addressed
this dilemma in the September 30, 2001 issue.
Christians,
called on to love one another, grapple with the
conflict of praying for peace as they go to war.
I
had never seen anything like it.Three Fridays ago on
the day President Bush declared a national day of
prayer and rememberance, the line of worshippers
extended down the front steps at Portland's St.
Michael the Archangel Church and up the street half a
block.
As
noon passed and the line didn't move, worshippers
reconciled themselves to not getting into the
sanctuary. A woman asked whether someone would lead
those on the sidewalk in prayer. And so a man with an
Indian accent led a diverse group of Americans --
black and white, Asian and Hispanic, young and old,
male and female -- in an extended sidewalk prayer.
It
was a moment sweet as the day's soft September
breeze.
But
if the Christian faithful who gathered in and around
Saint Michael's that day are anything like most
Americans, more than 80 percent probably favor some
kind of U.S. military response to the September 11
attacks. How does this square with Christian beliefs?
Aren't Christians supposed to "turn the other
cheek" and love their enemies? Aren't they
supposed to overcome evil with good, to believe that
vengeance is the Lord's?
How
then can the followers of the "Prince of
Peace" support war? Isn't that hypocritical?
Legitimate
questions to ask as a nation that is 85 percent
Christian marches off to a war on terrorism led by a
president who is a Christian. Legitimate questions in
a time marked by increased church-going and appeals
to God.
Christians
themselves struggle with these questions, and
Christianity's critics ask them with a taunt or
smirk. In addition, religious and non-religious
pacifists use certain biblical quotations to make
their points for peace.
So
how does one explain the seeming inconsistency? The
Rev. Scott Gilchrist, pastor of the Southwest Bible
Church in Beaverton, points out that Christians have
dual citizenship -- citizenship in this world and a
citizenship in the "commonwealth of Heaven"
-- and dual responsibilities.
Romans
12 talks about our responsibilities as individuals to
love our enemies and not to seek vengeance. In the
next chapter, however, Paul moves from our personal
obligations to our civic ones. The Christian is to be
"subject to the governing authorities" for
they are ordained by God. These authorities, Paul
goes on to say, do not, "bear the sword in
vain" and are "the servants of God to
execute His wrath on the wrongdoer."
Peter
put it differently. Human institutions exist "to
punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do
right" (1 Peter 2:13-14).
Did
the architects of the September 11 attacks do wrong
and deserve punishment?
What
would Jesus do? A better question might be: What
didn't Jesus do?
Christ
didn't tell soldiers to leave the Roman army. He
might have if pacifism were to be the Christian
mandate.
Ah,
but what of the "Thou shalt not kill"
commandment?
C.S.
Lewis priovided an answer in "Mere
Christianity." When Christ quoted that
commandment, he used the word for murder. As Lewis
wrote, "All killing is not murder any more than
all sexual intercourse is adultery."
Lewis'
"Mere Christianity" grew out of talks he
gave on BBC radio during World War II when the proper
"Christian" response to aggression was much
on his and the public's mind. Lewis thought Christian
pacifism "honestly mistaken," but went on
to answer an even tougher and more relevent question:
If
one is allowed to condemn the enemy's acts and punish
and kill the enemy, what's the difference between
Christian morality and a more secular approach?
"All
the difference in the world," Lewis says.
It's
how a person goes about the necessary business of war
and killing that counts. An individual should not
surrender to hate or come to enjoy the killing.
"Something inside us," Lewis says,
"the feeling of resentment, the feeling that
wants to get one's own back, must be simply
killed."
This
internal day to day struggle will last longer than
any armed conflict. After all, anger and hatred are
natural enough feelings in the most serene times and
grow in the face of premeditated wickedness. Yet, the
struggle to overcome these inevitable feelings is
perhaps more important than overcoming the forces
that provoke them.
"Even
while we kill and punish, we must try to feel about
the enemy as we feel about ourself -- to wish that he
were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or
another, be cured: in fact to wish him good,"
Lewis wrote. "That is what is meant in the Bible
by loving him."
Saint
Augustine, an early Christian church father,
certainly did not tell soldiers fighting the Vandals
in North Africa to lay down their arms. On the
contrary, Augustine wrote, military service could be
pleasing to God.
But
again, it's the soldier's internal approach to war
that's crucial. "Be a peacemaker when you are
waging war so that by overcoming those you attack you
can lead them to the advantages of peace,"
Augustine wrote. "Let necessity and not your
will slay the enemy fighting against you."
No
easy task in the face of evil, and one reason among
many that Christians fervently pray even as they
prepare for war.
David
Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at
503-221-8152 or david-reinhard@news.oregonian.com
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