The former Christian conservative says Halliburton is building detention centers for American citizens.

Long-time religious freedom advocate John Whitehead has taken a sharp left turn on U.S. national security. The founder of the 25 year old Charlottesville, Virginia based Rutherford Institute has long battled secularist attempts to minimize religious expression in public. More controversially, Whitehead helped Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against then President Clinton in the 1990’s. Ostensibly, Whitehead was part of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against which Hillary Clinton inveighed.

But Whitehead was always more quixotic than predictable, and his recent commentaries condemn religious conservatives for their supposed unquestioning support of President Bush’s wars. “With President Bush’s veto of the recent [Iraq War] spending bill, fighting in the Middle East will continue indefinitely—wars not only waged by an avowed Christian president but also backed by the evangelical Christian Right,” was how Whitehead opened his most recent anti-war editorial.

Whitehead seems to have become an inconsistent neo-pacifist, who wants to condemn all U.S. military actions, without acknowledging fully that he opposes all force. “Many who strive to follow Jesus’ teachings find it impossible to do so and still participate in war,” he wrote. “Caesar made use of chains and torture, in much the same way as governments do today.” In contrast, Whitehead asserted, “Jesus’ apostles never advocated violence.”

In his simplistic formulation of “What Would Jesus Do,” Whitehead is following the new creed of the evangelical left, which rejects historic Christian teachings about just war in favor of a Gandhi-like Jesus. “Christ’s crucifixion was a radical repudiation of the use of violent force,” Whitehead wrote, echoing the musings of famed religious pacifism advocate Stanley Hauerwas. Quoting evangelical Left author Brian McLaren, Whitehead surmised that Jesus, through His crucifixion, “had taken the empire’s instrument of torture and transformed it into God’s symbol of the repudiation of violence.”

The evangelical Left likes to besmirch the U.S. as today’s “empire,” no less imperialist than the Rome that crucified Jesus. Whitehead wrote that “one has to wonder what Jesus would say about war being waged in His name today.” Of course, Whitehead accepts the common leftist critique that Bush and the religious right have enshrouded Bush’s wars with Christian rhetoric. Quoting liberal Catholic writer Gary Wills, Whitehead insisted that Jesus “never accepted violence as justified.”

Last year, in another commentary, Whitehead complained about Israel’s attack on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, which “deliberately” targeted Lebanese civilians. “What Would Jesus Bomb?” Whitehead asked rhetorically. “It is a question for which President Bush, a self-avowed Christian, seems to have no answer, at least if one were to judge by his authorization of bombing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and his silence over Israel’s latest military actions in Lebanon.”

For Whitehead, the answer to his own question is obvious: “Jesus would not bomb or kill anyone. But this line of theological reasoning is sophistry. Christians do not believe that Jesus had a military or political vocation. The Savior would not lead troops into battle, any more than He would father a child, marry a woman, own property, hold government office, or transact loans, none of which were part of His messianic calling, but also none of which He forbade for others.

But Whitehead’s theological depth on this issue is no deeper than his international analysis. “The present administration insists that we are fighting for the freedom and livelihood of the Iraqis, Afghans, etc.,” he wrote. “But what about the freedom of all the innocent civilians who are caught in the crossfire, their deaths explained away as “collateral damage”?

Whitehead praised left-wing United Methodists who condemned their fellow United Methodist, President Bush, for his policies that “starve, strip and bomb.” And Whitehead concluded. “Bombing innocent civilians and using violence to accomplish one’s means is ultimately not an attribute of Christ.” But this American proclivity for blood-thirstiness did not begin with President Bush. Whitehead explained in another commentary earlier this year: “Starting with the genocide practiced against millions of Native Americans and continuing through the era of black slavery, the Civil War and onward to the present-day conflicts in the Middle East, our nation’s collective history has been indelibly stained with blood.” America, he ruefully disclaimed, needs an “exorcism.”

And the exorcism had better come soon. In another more paranoid commentary earlier this year, Whitehead warned of an impending American “police state,” imposed by an administration “whose actions over the past six years suggest that the American people are the enemy.” He also warned against potential “militarized police round-ups” and “detention camps” being built by Halliburton. It is all very obvious: “The current administration is laying the groundwork for a military state.”

In 1998, Whitehead told The Washington Post that he and his family no longer worship in a church but practice devotions only at home. But more revealingly, Whitehead’s political musings reveal a neo-Mennonite separatism that is faddish in some evangelical left circles. They excoriate other non-pacifist Christians as sell-outs to the “empire” and potentially “fascist.” Centuries of Christian teachings about the state’s proper use of force are jettisoned as “Constantinian.” The end result is often an intemperate mishmash of 1960’s left-wing jargon and Anabaptist self-righteousness.

Jesus and War

By John W. Whitehead
5/9/2007

“Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”—Jesus

With President Bush’s veto of the recent spending bill, fighting in the Middle East will continue indefinitely—wars not only waged by an avowed Christian president but also backed by the evangelical Christian Right. Rev. Jerry Falwell, in speaking of terrorists, epitomizes the Bush Administration’s stance: “I’m for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them away in the name of the Lord.” In this way, Christianity is joined with the state and its war machine.

However, what would Jesus think about this in light of his teachings against the use of violence—war, of course, being organized, systematic violence?

One can only imagine that he would be horrified. After all, many who strive to follow Jesus’ teachings find it impossible to do so and still participate in war. Indeed, leaders in the early church adopted Jesus’ attitude of nonviolence. Tertullian (born about AD 160), one of the giants of the early church, stated very clearly that confessing “Jesus as Lord” means taking the teachings of Jesus seriously. Just as Caesar commanded men to kill their enemies, Jesus commanded them to love their enemies. Caesar made use of chains and torture, in much the same way as governments do today. Jesus, on the other hand, taught Christians to forgive and to sacrifice power for servanthood.

In fact, Tertullian had pithy advice for soldiers who converted to Christianity: quit the army or be martyred for refusing to fight. Tertullian was not alone in his thinking. “For three centuries,” writes biblical scholar Walter Wink in The Powers That Be (1998), “no Christian author to our knowledge approved of Christian participation in battle.” This, of course, changed in the third century when the church was institutionalized and became an integral part of the warring Roman Empire.

Jesus’ apostles never advocated violence. Rather, they urged their followers to suffer, forgive and trust God for the outcome rather than take matters into their own hands. And while they may have talked about warfare and fighting, it was not through the use of conventional weapons. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.”

Christ’s crucifixion was a radical repudiation of the use of violent force. And the cross, which was the Roman tool of execution, was reserved especially for leaders of rebellions. “Anyone proclaiming a rival kingdom to the kingdom of Caesar would be a prime candidate for crucifixion,” writes Brian McLaren in The Secret Message of Jesus (2006). “This is exactly what Jesus proclaimed, and this is exactly what he offered.” But Jesus’ kingdom was one of peace. Among other things, he proclaimed, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also.” Consequently, Jesus ordered Peter not to use the sword, even to protect him.

The so-called Roman peace (Pax Romana) was made possible by the cross. That is, people so feared crucifixion that many opted not to challenge the emperor rather than face the possibility of death on the cross. Why then would early Christians choose the cross—an instrument of torture, domination, fear, intimidation and death—as their primary symbol? What could this possibly mean?

For early Christians, “it apparently meant that the kingdom of God would triumph not by inflicting violence but by enduring it,” notes McLaren, “not by making others suffer but by willingly enduring suffering for the sake of justice—not by coercing or humiliating others but by enduring their humiliation with gentle dignity.” Jesus, they believed, had taken the empire’s instrument of torture and transformed it into God’s symbol of the repudiation of violence. The message? Love, not violence, is the most powerful force in the universe.

Not surprisingly, the early Christians were not crusaders or warriors but martyrs—men and women with the faith and courage to face the lions. Like Jesus, they chose to suffer rather than inflict violence.

When Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers,” exhorting his followers to turn the other cheek and give freely, he was telling us that active peacemaking is the way to end war. Can you imagine what the world would be like if every church adopted that attitude and focused its energies on active peacemaking?

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who vocally opposed the Vietnam War, took to heart Jesus’ teachings about peacemaking. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, King proclaimed:

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say “we must not wage war.” It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.

This is not to say that Jesus was a pacifist. The opposite is true. He spoke truth to power and engaged in active resistance to injustice. In my opinion, Jesus would have intervened to defend someone being violently mistreated, and I believe we must do the same. But he would never have engaged in violence as the means to an end.

One has to wonder what Jesus would say about war being waged in his name today. As Gary Wills writes in What Jesus Meant (2006), “If people want to do battle for God, they cannot claim Jesus has called them to this task, since he told Pilate that his ministers would not do that.” In fact, as Wills notes, Jesus “never accepted violence as justified.”

To read John Whitehead's further thoughts on this topic, click here.

I disagree with Whitehead on this, as I disagreed with Tertullian when I studied him.

This view is what much theological error is: Taking part of a truth and substituting it as a whole truth.

The fact is that PART of what John Whitehead Tertullian is saying is correct. Jesus DID issue in a new age where love conquesrs hate, peace swallows war, kindness conquers barbarism, and force is no longer needed. Jesus is the "Prince of Peace" and his followers are called to be "peacemakers." Ok so far.

The problem is in what theologians have called the "already but not yet" aspect of Jesus's kingdom. We have this new kingdom which is called to live in the midst of and interact with a kingdom of power, lust, greed, war, hatred and wickedness. We are not allowed to RETREAT from this world, as though we are tainted by it. We are called to use the civil structures ordained by God to "use the sword" to restrain evil. The logical conclusion of Whitehead and Tertullian is that no Christian can ever serve as a soldier, policeman, sheriff, judge, bailiff, jury member, or lawyer......, although there IS some support for that last category (smile). All these professions will be GONE in heaven, but until then, they are God's APPOINTED means to restrain evil. Christians can and should seek to serve, and as John the Baptist encouraged soldiers not to abuse their power or become greedy, so today's law enforcement officers should seek to serve humbly, honestly, and repudiate the hatred and violent rage of the heathen as they become the executor of God's justice in this world.

Whitehead is wrong, and I am sorry to see a man who has been such a PHENOMENAL and COURAGEOUS defender of the unborn, and a true hero when it comes to the protection of individual liberties, step into what I believe to be grevious biblical and social error.

That said, those of you who may be inclined to tear him apart should remember that he is a BROTHER. He is also a fervent defender of your rights to say despicable things about him if you wish. I love him because of his commitment to scriptural applications in the cause of exhibiting Christ's kingdom here on earth. I wish he had not let his emotional revulsion against the excesses of the "war on terror" push him into such an untenable position.

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.

Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good.

But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing.

Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. - Romans 13:1-7

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God is NOT an anarchist. He has always, ALWAYS, in every level of society and civilization, demanded law and order.

MR Whitehead needs to read Romans 13 and reasses his position.

I cannot back it up with a link, and I am going strictly from memory, but I’m fairly sure that I’ve read John Whitehead explain that he leans in a Christian libertarian direction. Orthodox Presbyterian is also something similar to that.

As a career chaplain in the military, it didn’t happen often, but I did run across a few who claimed to come from a pacifist tradition. Some were just trying to get out of the military, but another that sticks clearly in mind was from a traditional pacifist denomination, had defied it, and then had seen the reality of what the military was about. He had a crisis of conscience and initiated a conscientious objector claim that I supported. I truly believed that this young man believed pacifist Christian theology.

I don’t. That doesn’t mean that others have to believe like me. I simply have to realize that some (a very few) are pacifist.

Whitehead, if he is libertarian, is not a pacifist, but is rather, a strong believer in only pure “defensive” operations. This is taken to a radical extreme that I don’t support, but that doesn’t mean it is not a legitimate position.

I would leave Whitehead alone and go find the real culprits: those on the left who would manipulate a war-time nation simply to achieve/acquire power.

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