Ecumenical Councils of War

Touchstone Magazine ^ | November 2004 | David B. Hart

[Dumb_Ox]

Ecumenical Councils of War

by David B. Hart

An Antiochene Orthodox priest of my acquaintance recently told me, with every appearance of sincerity, that he had converted to the Eastern Church because he was a pacifist. For a moment, I was uncertain as to whether he was attempting to baffle me with some cunningly constructed paradox.

I would have found it a no more impenetrable non sequitur had he announced that he had joined the local Elks’ lodge because of his passion for beautiful young women, or that he enjoyed reading Calvin for the witticisms. But it soon became clear that he had meant his remark not only in earnest, but without any sense at all of its absurdity; indeed, he was somewhat disconcerted to discover that, in my own conversion to Orthodoxy almost two decades earlier, I had not been inspired in the slightest by similar motives.

It strikes me as a singular sort of delusion to imagine that the Eastern Orthodox tradition is any more hospitable to pacifism than the Western Catholic tradition, given the utter absence of pacifist tenets from Orthodoxy’s teachings, liturgy, or history. And yet, apparently, it is a delusion shared by a not inconsiderable number of (Western) Eastern Christians at present. Of course, it is something of a cottage industry in the Orthodox Church—especially among converts—to discover and “market” ever newer ancient differences between Eastern and Western Christian theology, morality, devotion, spirituality, politics, cuisine, or whatever else one can think of.

[Dumb_Ox]

And, since an explicit and elaborate theory of “just war” is the special achievement of Western tradition, it has become received wisdom in some quarters of the Eastern Church that Orthodox tradition obviously regards all war as intrinsically “unjust” (which, for reasons obscure to me, is taken as proof of a certain spiritual superiority on the Eastern side). Thus has been born another fatuous myth regarding the division between the ancient Catholic Churches, one that—like all its predecessors—combines a refusal to learn the meaning of unfamiliar terms with a magnificent indifference to historical fact.

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I thought this to be an excellent review of the historical background on Just War theory in Eastern and Western Christianity. Hart raises some critical problems in Just War Theory's current application. For instance:

Cole puts himself in the odd position of having to argue that Christians must both obey the principles of just war and also resign themselves to fighting at the behest of a political order that has not necessarily placed itself under the sway of those principles.

Is there a way to resolve this contradiction?

[redgolum]

I am not sure about today, but in ages past to be a soldier in the Byzantine Empire meant that you were excluded from communion for at least three years (not excommunicated, just had to do penance after you served) and couldn't communion while actively in the army. Eastern Orthodox have a greater emphasis on submission than the western churches.

[telder1]

What contradiction? Genuine Christians have been born again by the Spirit of God explicitly by hearing the Word of God. As real, literal new creations in Jesus Christ, God lives in us and does as He pleases through for His good pleasure. It is part of the lie of free will (in which the eastern and a very great part of the western visible Church is deceived...) that any such thing exists as an ideal model of behavior--at all--much less a 'Christian one'.

That's the thing about the free will lie. Once you are deceived you have free will, you have to prove it by 'doing something'--now you need a set of rules by which you demonstrate you are intrinsically 'good' as opposed to 'bad' and therefore 'deserve heaven', etc. So those who are deceived they are 'stuck with' 'free will' are always looking for some ideal model of behavior to perform--and they always find there isn't one and that no matter what they do they are never sure they 'did the right thing'--so they are always looking for another ideal model and move from denomination to denomination and false religion to false religion.

Those who seek to kill Christians or make Christians out to be the enemies of the progress of man etc.. are always trying to catch Christians within a supposed ideal model in order to kill them with it. That supposed ideal model that 'includes' pacifism is the favorite of the enemies of God as it seems to them that in order for a Christian to be consistent with their 'principles'/'ideal model' Christians must necessarily be slaughtered to prove the veracity of their 'faith' in 'God'. It is no accident that the favorite ideal model of Christianity of the Left is always pacifistic and prohibits any involvement in government at all. Thus the Left absolutely despises Calvinism because God in true Calvinism directly declares there to be no free will--and therefore no ideal model of behaivor--and therefore Christians can't be caught within any model at all.

The fundamental Truth is that you can't do God's will through you in advance. You don't even know what He is going to do through you next. How then is an enemy going to plan against you when God is very unpredictable? Who would imagine that being a soldier would part of God's will for you when you never wanted to kill anybody? Yet God nowhere in the Scriptures says "don't be a solider" and leaves the door open for whatever He will do. On a certain level it is a catastrophe. On another it is beautiful--not for the death, but because God is doing His will through you and you know it. One day you are preaching to the congregation and the next you are a prophet of 9mm and 5.56, a minuteman like your fathers that only God turns on and off of various activities. Nobody knows what God is going to do next through them. That is very plain. There is no paradox or contradiction because of that Truth--there is no free will.

There are very great political consequences when the mass of the people are deceived men have free will and it always ends in catastrophe as they are moved through ideal model after ideal model... Don't be deceived.

John 8:31,32 Jesus therefore said to the Jews who believed him, If ye abide in my word, ye are truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

John 8:36 If therefore the Son shall set you free, ye shall be really free.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen