Just War - Or A Just War?
Some thoughts on Christians and the
by James Patton
Foreword:
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that the recent war in
Please note that the original idea for this essay came from an article written
by Jimmy Carter in March 2003 for the New York Times. Jimmy Carter is a
Christian, 39th president of the United States, chairman of the Carter Centre
in Atlanta, and a 2002 Nobel Peace prize winner.
War and the Christian
The Christian Call to Love
War is a very difficult issue for Christians, because throughout the New
Testament all Christians are called to love, gentleness, patience, purity,
kindness, goodness, forgiveness, humility, self-control, service and mercy.
Nothing should be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind
each should esteem others better than themselves.
Below are some teachings from the Old Testament that the one who claims to
follow Jesus Christ should consider seriously.
Thus has the LORD of hosts said, "These are the things you should do:
Speak truth to one another; Dispense true justice - judge with truth &
judgement for peace in your courts; practice kindness & compassion each to
his brother; & walk humbly with your God.
Do not oppress the widow or the poor; Do not love perjury; Do not deprive the
alien or the fatherless of justice... the stranger/alien (refugee) who sojourns
among you shall be to you as a native, and you shall love him as yourself
(remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from
there. That is why I command you to do this), and let none of you devise evil
in your hearts against one another; for all those are what I hate",
declares the LORD.
For He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, to love kindness, & to walk humbly with your God?
(Adapted from Zech 7:9-10 &
Christians are called never to render evil for evil and never to lord it over
one another, but to be generous, peaceable, gentle, reasonable,
non-judgemental, overcoming evil with good and returning blessing for cursing.
Like our Lord who washed His disciples feet, the one who would be leader should
be the servant of all. If our enemies are hungry, we are called to show them
compassion and feed them, or if they are thirsty, we are called to give them
something to drink. We are called to love our neighbours as ourselves –
and to bear in mind that love never does harm or wrong to a neighbour.
Christians are called to take up our cross and follow in the steps of our Lord.
So in light of all this, is there ever a case where Christians should
participate in or support the ultimate horror that human beings can inflict
upon one other - the horror known as “war”?
For the first three centuries after Christ, the church by and large rejected
war. During this period the church consisted largely of persecuted men and
women, often slaves or other non-citizens, and running the state or exercising
political power was not an issue that the church had to deal with. It
wasn’t until the fourth century, after the conversion of the Roman
Emperor Constantine and the adoption of Christianity as the official state
religion, that Christian theologians began to seriously wrestle with the
problem of when Christians could or should go to war.
The result of this struggle was that over the centuries a number of (mostly
Roman Catholic) theologians developed a set of criteria that defined when a war
could be deemed “just”, and therefore Christians would be justified
to participate in such a war.
The Christian “Just War”
Tradition
The Christian “just war” tradition argues that, sadly, in a fallen
world, sometimes force must be used to restrain evil and bring about justice.
War is always immoral, but it is argued that sometimes it is better that a less
immoral force should oppose a more immoral force rather than allow evil to
reign unchecked.
A “just war” should never be waged for money or selfish motives,
for exploitation, for reasons of pride or prejudice or revenge, or merely for
control of economic resources (such as oil or land), or any other impure or
base motive. A “just war” should only be waged as a last resort to
restrain evil and bring about a more just, peaceful and righteous world.
It should always be remembered that whilst most Christians sit in the safety of
their comfortable church pews singing pious songs and debating the merits of a
“just war”, many war veterans are among the strongest opponents of
war, because they have been there and experienced the horrors of war face to
face. When historian and war veteran Howard Zinn was asked his reactions to
Bush’s declaration of war on
It should also be remembered that drug addiction, rape, prostitution, killing
of children and civilians, lies, suicide, domestic violence, divorce, anger,
guilt, hatred, intense grief, adverse health effects caused by toxins such as
DDT or radiation poisoning etc. will always inevitably accompany the horror of
war.
War is the ultimate horror that human beings can inflict upon each other.
During war children get their limbs and faces torn off, parents watch their
children’s heads being blown off, injured people with blood sloshing in
their shoes carry severed limbs down the blood smeared corridors of hospitals
worked beyond capacity, men bury their entire families. And with modern
weapons, the horrors of war often continue for many decades after the conflict
has ended. Just ask any amputee who had the misfortune to step on a landmine,
or any father whose child innocently played with unexploded ordinance, or any
person who got terribly sick after drinking polluted water because the water
purification facility was destroyed, or any mother who gave birth to a severely
deformed baby due to exposure to toxic chemical and radiation poisoning. In the
aftermath of war, many war veterans suffer Post Traumatic Stress and turn to
suicide, violence or drugs in an attempt to deal with their extraordinary
grief.
War causes terrible suffering and therefore is certainly not something that
Christians devoted to love, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, gentleness and
kindness should ever endorse lightly or glibly.
So again I ask, in light of all this, is there ever a case where Christians
should participate in the ultimate horror that human beings can inflict upon
one other - the horror known as “war”?
Iraq and Christian “Just
War” Theory
For the sake of argument, let us assume that there are occasions where, sadly,
evil is rampaging through the world unchecked, and the only choice is to
surrender to this evil or to go to war. For example, President Bush has said
that
Furthermore let us make the fundamental assumption that the
Now, having made these assumptions, we will examine whether the substantially
unilateral
Nobel Peace Prize winner and 39th
“For a war to be just, it must meet
several clearly defined criteria. “
The attackers must have legitimate authority
sanctioned by the society they profess to represent (i.e. war is not declared
or waged by private citizens or by pirates or other usurpers).
In the international arena, when a decision is made to invade a sovereign
nation, the legitimate authority is the United Nations Security Council.
The unanimous vote of approval in the Security Council to eliminate
We conclude that the legitimate authority for invading
The war can be waged only as a last resort,
with all non-violent options exhausted.
In the case of
But despite the fact that U.S. national security was not directly threatened
and despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments around
the world, the United States was determined to carry out unilateral military
and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilized
nations. The
Saddam Hussein’s regime was co-operating with the weapons inspectors
– clearly the “last resort” criteria was not met.
The war's weapons must discriminate between
combatants and non-combatants.
The extensive aerial bombardment, even with precise accuracy, inevitably
resulted in "collateral damage." 20,000 smart bombs, and 10,000
old-style “dumb bombs”, were dropped on
The problem of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) is acute in
Johan Solhberg, the ICRC's regional ERW
adviser and a veteran of many conflict areas, considers the situation in
"They constitute a permanent threat to
the population, especially children, who are unaware of the danger: they
continuously come into contact with them, play with them and risk getting
maimed or killed," says Sohlberg.
It is estimated that between 2,000 and 17,000 deadly cluster bomblets litter
In addition to this,
The half-life of DU is 4.5 billion years, and it is impossible to clean up all
of the contamination, or to treat all of the victims. DU will go on causing
slow and painful deaths and contaminating the soil, air and water for many
generations to come.
These weapons have no ability whatsoever to discriminate between combatants and
non-combatants, and their use is a war crime.
Its violence must be proportional to the
injury we have suffered.
Despite Saddam Hussein's other serious crimes (many of which were committed
with American aid and complicity), American efforts to tie
In any case, the 9/11 attacks killed about 3,000 people. In contrast it is
estimated that
However tyrannical Saddam Hussein was, and he was tyrannical,
The attack on
It must be waged for a Just cause (i.e. self-defense or to redress some
grievous injury to a nation-state)
The U.S., Australia and Britain claimed unequivocally that they possessed
high-grade intelligence that proved beyond doubt that Iraq possessed vast
stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction that posed a major threat to the
security of the world. These claims have been proven to be bare faced lies.
500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres
of botulinum toxin, 29,984 prohibited munitions capable of delivering chemical
agents within 45 minutes, several dozen Scud missiles, gas centrifuges to
enrich uranium, yellow-cake uranium purchased from Niger, 18 mobile biological
warfare factories, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles to dispense anthrax, and
proof of close ties with Al Qaeda. Those are the things that President Bush or
his aides, and Prime Ministers Howard and Blair, suggested
Three months after the war, with hundreds of suspected weapons sites inspected
by
Members of the intelligence and political communities resigned before the war
in protest, and members of the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams were and remain
sceptical about
Paul Wolfowitz, a leading neo-conservative chicken-hawk who has never experienced
the horrors of war, told Vanity Fair magazine, 'For bureaucratic reasons we
settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one
reason everyone could agree on'.
If
We conclude that if a just cause existed to provoke this war, then WMD was not
it. I suggest there were other agendas driving this invasion, including oil,
power, U.S. hegemony, psychology, revenge and money – none of which are
valid reasons for waging war in the Christian just war tradition.
The peace it establishes must be a clear improvement
over what exists.
Although some had visions of peace and democracy in
Author William Blum writes:
Can Iraq expect "liberation" and a markedly improved life after the
Empire takes over? Let's look at the results of the Empire's recent onslaught
and occupation of
1) warlords are active again
2) opium cultivation is once again booming
3) a man hand-picked by Washington is president; both the president and several
of his ministers are actually Afghan-Americans
4) countless homes and other buildings have been destroyed by US bombing
5) thousands of innocent civilians have been killed as well as thousands of others
engaged in combat who were only defending the country they lived in from a
foreign invasion; not one of the many dead has been shown to have had any
connection to the September 11 attack; most of the so-called
"terrorists" at the training camps had come to Afghanistan to aid the
Taliban in their civil war, a religious mission, none of Washington's concern
6) crime and violence are once again a danger in the cities' neighborhoods,
which had been made safer by the Taliban
7) the country is occupied by foreign troops who often treat the population
badly; US forces seize Afghans and take them away without explanation and keep
them incommunicado indefinitely; some are sent to the 21st century's Devils
Island in Guantanamo Base, Cuba
8) in Kabul, the number of children suffering from malnutrition is almost
double what it was before the American invasion
9) the quality of women's lives has very slightly improved, but is still far
below what women enjoyed under the government the United States overthrew in
the 1980-1990s
It is unrealistic to expect the
As for the Iraqi people, they suffer from the same heat, the same aggravating
lack of reliable services as they did before the invasion, but they also suffer
from having no jobs and, for many, no future prospects. Their infrastructure is
in lousy shape. Their schools and hospitals are in lousy shape. They are living
under foreign occupation. They have no idea when or if they will get to govern
themselves. Basic services such as electricity and water are still unreliable.
Their streets are no longer safe.
American troops' inability to secure the oil and energy infrastructure in
In contrast, Saddam Hussein — despite the fact he was a tyrant and a
despot, and despite the terrible U.N. sanctions — fed the people; his
regime kept the electricity and the telephones operative; they provided
security for the people; and they had a communications system. Saddam was a
ruthless dictator, but as long as the average Iraqi didn’t interfere in
politics, he would be free to go about his own lawful business, to practice the
religion of his choice and to own a gun.
The unfortunate truth is that since occupying
One may also argue that the terrorist threat is now multiplied as a result of
this war.
In light of all this, I argue that the peace the “liberation” has established is in many ways inferior to the tyranny that existed pre-invasion.
In summary, despite what Bush, Blair or
Howard may say, it is clear that the invasion of
The war did not have legitimate authority, it was not waged as a last resort,
the weapons were a war crime, the violence was way out of proportion, the cause
was a lie, and the ensuing occupation has not made the world a more peaceful
place – rather it has made the world more violent and less safe.
So what have we achieved?
Bush may boast that we have "liberated" the Iraqis, but we haven't truly set them free.
We may have taught them how to shout in anger and topple statues, but we haven't taught them how to forgive.
We may have taught them that overwhelmingly superior military force wins wars and topples dictators, but we haven't taught them how to be merciful.
We may have armed the Kurds and the Shi'ites against their enemies, perhaps provoking a civil war, but we haven't taught them how to love their enemies.
We may be bringing them "democracy" and "free enterprise", but we haven't taught them how to love their neighbour and live in peace and harmony.
We really haven't taught the people of
In short, we have taught Iraqis that Christianity is about war and mass violence, but we have failed to empty ourselves of all our pride and vain conceit and show them the simple humility of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We've already had the "wars to end all wars", and they've engendered nothing but more wars. Surely it's time we tried something new?
Thinking Outside the Bomb – The
Church and War
This is my conviction – let the church be the church. Political power plays and intrigues, pride and revenge, control of oil and war profiteering, are not the business of those who claim to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rather than supporting a doctrine of never-ending “pre-emptive” wars supposedly to end terror and tyranny, the church should reject all evil, and instead make a radical call to love, gentleness, purity, kindness, goodness, forgiveness, humility and mercy, all stripped of any selfishness or vain conceit.
War is not the only solution to the world’s dilemmas, and is rarely, if ever, the best option. There are non-violent models for revolutionary change that have been used.
Apart from Ghandi in
In December 1989, a popular people's
uprising, joined by the army, led to the arrest
and execution of the corrupt and repressive Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu
and his
wife, Elena.
Similarly Ferdinand Marcos was ousted from
the
Suharto in
What the stories of these revolutions demonstrate is the power people can have when they withdraw consent.
The church should study these positive
examples and seek to find creative, non-violent strategies of opposing tyranny
and oppression wherever it may occur. By this we may demonstrate the presence
and love of the Lord we profess in very real and tangible ways, and we may
participate in the faith and perseverance of the saints.
John, a U.S. marine and peacemaker who opposed the war, but went anyway and
died in Iraq on June 20, explained that many alternatives to combat were
available, such as using money being spent for war to finance a grassroots
Iraqi democracy movement that would rival the Baath regime, or promoting
democracy throughout the Middle East to show people alternative forms of
government.
"It is almost unimaginable to expect that this war is going to create a
better peace for anybody with the exception of a very small percentage of
people," John said.
In letters home, John described the peace movement as "awesome," and said he hoped it would grow larger, never relent against the Bush administration, and help bring an end to the war.
The church should not allow the acceptance of war to become a defining characteristic of the majority of its people, even though this world’s economic system may demand it. “Under capitalism, corporations that produce weapons make huge profits from these weapons of war and therefore are happy both to prepare for war and to engage in war. You prepare for war, you have all these government contracts, and make all this money, and you engage in war and you use up all these products and you have to replace them,” according to historian and war veteran Howard Zinn.
“War has always diminished our freedom,” says Zinn.
“When our freedom has expanded, it has
not come as a result of war or of anything the government has done but as a
result of what citizens have done. The best test of that is the history of
black people in the
The freedom of working people, the freedom of black people has always depended on the struggles of people themselves against the government. So, if we look at it historically, we certainly cannot depend on governments to maintain our liberties. We have to depend on our own organized efforts.”
The church should have nothing to do with the evil of this world, but instead we should expose it. We should give careful heed to the spiritual diagnosis of our Lord, “do you not know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked?” and repent. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Revelation 3:17)
Whilst the world continues to live and die
by the sword, believers in the grace of God should be salt and light, seeking
creative, non-violent ways of bringing the love and reconciliation of the
Prince of Peace to a lost world.
__________________________
James Patton graduated in Computer Science in 1991. Since then he has worked in the computing field for a number of years, and travelled around the world twice, visiting 35 countries en-route. At present he is studying The Politics of Jesus (by John Howard Yoder) and thinking long and hard about his Christian faith, particularly with respect to war.
His website is here: http://members.tripod.com/james_patton/
Also please see James' summary of John Howard Yoder's "Romans 13 and the Authority of the State".