I dont buy that a majority of church leaders are against war if it is proven saddam is a threat
for more about the sojourners check out their website which describes them as a progressive christian publication. to me it looks like your typical lefty web site
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm
TheRedSoxWinThePennant, I don't mean "you", I mean author.
I assume Jim Wallis and most of the anti-war religious leaders would not have endorsed the use of force to rid the world of Nazism? I think that was a just war under any theological reading of the moral use of force. So is ridding the world of Saddam.
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The Presbyterian "Peacemongers"
by J. R. Nyquist
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2002/1104.htm
The General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. recently issued a “Call to Prayer and Action” related to the Iraq crisis (see
http://www.pcusa.org/iraq/gacstatement.htm). In recent weeks, Presbyterian ministers within the denomination have issued statements opposing President Bush’s hard line against Saddam Hussein and the “Axis of Evil.” Presbyterian ministers are now quoting Mathew 5:39, where Christ says, “resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Even conservative pastors (i.e. those who admittedly voted for George W. Bush) are making pacifist arguments. For example, the Rev. Dan Price of Eureka (CA), commenting on “Just War Theory,” wrote: “it is difficult to argue convincingly that Jesus would subscribe to such a theory.” Jesus told us to love our enemies, wrote Price: “can we really love them and drop bombs on them at the same time?”
According to the General Assembly Council’s “Call to Prayer and Action”: Christians are “to ‘overcome evil with good’ (Romans 12:21).” We are left to conclude, from this simple and straightforward quotation, that President George W. Bush’s tough stance toward Iraq is un-Christian. In its “Call to Prayer and Action,” the Presbyterian Council stated that: “Clearly … no person or nation [should] dare indulge in self-righteous condemnation of others.” Instead of describing totalitarian dictators as “evil,” the Presbyterian Council prefers that the president “speak in ways that encourage peace, rather than war, and refrain from language that seems to label certain individuals and nations as ‘evil’ and others as ‘good.’” (This obviously refers to the president’s “Axis of Evil” remarks.) The Council further noted that the Church “is called to practice forgiveness of enemies and to commend to the nations as practical politics the search for cooperation and peace.” [Italics added.] The Council added that if Iraq and the United States allocated their resources to peace “rather than to the instruments of war … God’s vision of shalom/salaam/peace would be much nearer to reality for all.” In a further aside, the Council said: “America must“ guard against unilateralism, rooted in our unique position of political, economic, and military power, that perpetuates the perception that ‘might makes right,’ and sets us over [and] against the larger community of nations.”
As if this were not enough, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Web site (
http://www.pcusa.org/) leads with an article titled “Peacemongers.” It is a press release that glowingly describes the Presbyterian peace movement as it huddles “in the offices of U.S. Congressmen” and takes part “in 1960s-style ‘teach-ins.’”
As everyone knows, America is at war. We did not “turn the other cheek” after 9/11. From all outward appearances, the nation is determined to resist evil and smash the terrorists. Perhaps I was not paying attention at the time, but I did not hear our vaunted Presbyterian “peacemongers” quote Mathew 5:39 when the Twin Towers came crashing down. Now why would that be? If Christians are truly obliged to “resist not evil” on every occasion, why didn’t the General Assembly Council loudly denounce the War on Terror?
In 1783 a Whig minister (some scholars believe it was Stephen Case) wrote, “prayers and tears are the arms of the church.” He also stated that, together “with preaching and church discipline, [these] are the only ecclesiastical or spiritual arms of a church as a church; but the members thereof are also men, and as men they may use the same weapons as others do.”
Before setting down anything further, it should be understood that I am not a member of the Republican Party. I have not advocated, nor do I presently advocate, an invasion of Iraq; but I am a Presbyterian who is disappointed to find silly arguments published in church bulletins and on the official Presbyterian U.S.A. Web site.
The gospels are not political science, any more than Genesis is paleontology. To emphasize a doctrine of passive resistance, given to Jews under the Roman Empire, is to forget the context of our own time. America is the world’s policeman, the protector of the weak and helpless among nations, the guarantor of peace and stability, the nemesis of totalitarian ambition. If America adopted a policy of “resist not evil,” wars of aggression and plunder would flare up on all sides and millions would perish. The light of civilization would be dimmed.
“Turning the other cheek” may be the right thing to do when your own cheek is at hazard; but when the lives of millions hang in the balance, when nations are threatened with destruction, there is such a thing as duty. In this situation it is folly to teach the world’s policeman to set aside his gun and baton. At the same time it is subversive to set up an answer in advance, with clever rhetorical preparation, and then ask the unthinking believer, “What would Jesus do?” Yes, Jesus told the Jews to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek. (In those days the enemy would have been the Romans.) But did He intend this teaching for twenty-first century America, burdened as it is with the responsibility of defending the free world from dictators and terrorists? Our historical context is not that of first century Jews. Responsibility for global order fell to us after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. As this is the situation, does Christian doctrine obligate America, as one Presbyterian minister wrote, “to go to the cross” because “taking life contradicts what the Gospel teaches about the sanctity of life”? Is the battle plan of the faithful, in every instance, “to overcome evil, not with power, but with the power of love”?
It could be argued that the Presbyterian clergy and their General Assembly Council have taken a one-sided approach to the New Testament, perhaps prompted by undue nostalgia for the 1960s. I am not a theologian, but there are passages in the Bible that contradict the universality of the Gospel teaching that says, “Resist not evil.” This teaching, advocated in the first book of the New Testament does not appear in the last book, which says of the King of kings and Lord of lords that “out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” (Rev. 19:15) In that same chapter we read: “and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.” (Rev. 19:11)
Who therefore asks, “What would Jesus do?” The answer is clearly set forth. The King of kings makes war; he calls evil by its proper name and smites the nations. Will the world be allowed to crucify Him a second time? Clearly, the Presbyterian General Assembly Council, and many of the Church’s ministers, ought to read what the Bible actually teaches on this point.
Sophisticated and subtle clergymen, fed on science as opposed to superstition, must surely recognize that the Bible makes use of metaphor and hyperbole. This is famously acknowledged, especially in theological seminaries. The academic game of the hour, of course, is to mix everything up for the sake of some outrageous theological turn: in the present instance, to advocate anarchy and appeasement under the cover of the Gospel.
It can be argued that the Presbyterian General Assembly Council takes a politically correct and not a theologically correct position. The Council opposes the President’s idea of “regime change” in Iraq, supposedly on scriptural grounds. But it is all about politics. It is all about 1960s-style “teach-ins.”
Why are there no “teach-ins” about abortion? Why are there no “teach-ins” about adultery, fornication or sodomy? There is so much evil in the world. We must, after all, fix our attention on the biggest evil of all: that is, American foreign policy. Apparently, this is the logic of today’s Presbyterian scholars and bureaucrats. When a foreign dictator is pressed by U.S. military power (in the 1960s the foreign dictator was Ho Chi Minh) it is time to promote peace. Where was all this noble outrage when Iraq invaded Iran or Kuwait? Where was this outrage when Saddam was slaughtering the Kurds or massacring whole Iraqi villages?
I do not know if it is prudent to invade Iraq; but there can be no moral objection to a war against someone who tortures children to death (as a means to coerce atomic scientists). There can be no moral objection to a war against the tyrant who invaded Iran and Kuwait, who has promised to avenge “the centuries of wrong” once he gets a nuclear bomb. Saddam Hussein openly admires Hitler and Stalin. They are his heroes. Under the circumstances, prudence enjoins us to make war on this man if he threatens our country or our allies. But America’s Presbyterian scholars and bureaucrats denounce President Bush’s proposal for “regime change” in Iraq as “unjust.” They chastise him for calling a blood-soaked dictator “evil.”
Something is wrong with those who denounce a courageous stand against a ruthless dictator as “unjust,” who clothe their own misguided politics in Christ’s teachings. And there is also something laughable. In the midst of a war against Arab terrorists, we learn that Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel is the Presbyterian U.S.A. General Assembly moderator. In terms of “political correctness” this is almost self-parody. I do not know the circumstances behind the choice of Fahed Abu-Akel as moderator, but the leadership is apparently overzealous in its desire to affirm multicultural inclusiveness. (This is evidently the first consideration at every turn.)
It is of interest to read, on the official Presbyterian Web site, that the Detroit presbytery, along with other “Presbyterian entities,” recently sponsored a program to explore Islamic theological traditions. I am led to conclude that if Buddhist fanatics bombed America tomorrow, many presbyteries would begin studying Buddhism.
As for the “teach-ins” organized by assorted theology professors at Princeton and other universities, you would have to be naïve to miss the radical political agenda behind the religious façade. Consider what is being taught: “The program will explore the implications of a [U.S.] pre-emptive strike.” How about the implications of an Iraqi atomic bomb? Or how about Iraq’s aggression against its neighbors, or Iraq’s noncompliance with U.N. weapons inspectors?
The views of the Presbyterian General Assembly Council, as expressed in “A Message to the Church and Nation: A Call to Prayer and Action,” have little to do with Presbyterian tradition. “Give peace a chance” was a slogan we heard in the 1960s when it sank Southeast Asia in communist tyranny, leading to the deaths of millions at the hands of Pol Pot (see The Black Book of Communism). In the present situation “give peace a chance” means: “Give Saddam a chance.”
How many chances is this bloody tyrant entitled to?
I am disappointed in the leadership of the Presbyterian Church. Whether the clergy realize it or not, advocating non-violence in politics is the same as advocating anarchy. If Christians are, indeed, prohibited from taking human life, then Christian civilization is a contradiction in terms. Civil order depends on force of arms. The state cannot exist without violence. The philosopher Spinoza wrote that, “if government be taken away, no good thing can last, all falls into dispute, anger and anarchy reign unchecked amid universal fear.”
Consider the irony and the paradox at the root of non-violence: anarchy itself is raw violence. It is unchecked violence. It is the state of nature described by Sir Thomas Hobbes, in which human life becomes “nasty, poor, brutish and short.”
Consider the reality: If we give up our right to self-defense, if we surrender the state, if we leave the sphere of politics to the likes of Saddam Hussein, degradation and infamy will follow in our wake. Posterity will curse us.
Now ask yourself: Is this the course of love?
© 2002 Jeffrey R. Nyquist
November 4, 2002
Every church I have been to since 9/11 does pray for peace, through justice. Which means to take care of the terrorists, then enjoy peace.
Yep, the article is written by those very people that would scream the loudest about the "separation of Church and State" were a deeply religeous Supreme Court Justice to be nominated.
Sojourners is and always has been a leftist pro-Marxist publication and Jim Wallis among the most liberal leaning. He may point to Christian theology in this case, because it's handy, but more often than not Sojourner's concerns are politically motivated. If I wasted the time to get into an argument with him I might ask him for the Christian theology and Biblical commentary regarding abortion and homosexuality, both of which he obviously approves.