Religion and the Politics of War
The taking of another human life is
and should be a matter of critical importance to the Christian. To
believe in God as Creator and Sustainer of life, every instance when
human life is at stake should create a major moral imperative for
the Believer. The fact that the taking of life in Iraq failed to
raise deep concerns among Evangelicals is troublesome.
When the flag waving, the excitement
over retribution for real or perceived harm, the nationalism and the
romance of war have given way to its realities, war’s final judgment
is about the giving and taking of life. To say that God goes before
us in matters of war is to cheapen life to a sound bite and to raise
questions concerning the motives of the Pro-Life agenda.
For the Christian, the giving and
taking of life cannot be a mere blip on the screen of nationalism.
The phrase, “God bless America” does not excuse the failure to
search deeply and prayerfully within ourselves for our motives and
our justification for supporting international conflict. For at the
bottom line, by our assent we have given our blessing to the taking
of human life and are accountable.
Neither should the romance of our sons
and daughters going off to war, a romance quickly extinguished when
the first shot is fired, keep us from analyzing deeply the inherent
conflict between our faith and our national passion.
Understanding that we do not live in
an ideal world, there are times when we have to accept the decision
to go to war, with its resultant death. But those times ought to be
with great reluctance and for the Christian must always be times of
deep, conflicting debate.
The Ignorance of War:
I was having lunch at the Army and
Navy Club in Washington when the War in Vietnam was announced by
President Johnson in 1964. I joined in the roar of approval that
went up from the members. I know how easy it is to forget our first
love, God, and get caught up in the excitement of finally doing
something about some perceived threat.
I clung to my support for far too
long. You might say I stayed the course. We now know that the
Vietnam War was ill-conceived, ill-fought and ill-supported at home.
Down, down, down we went on this
fool’s errand, supporting our Presidents rather than using our
heads. I shall never forget the despair I felt when it all ended
with the resignation of President Nixon who needed a cause so badly
that he manufactured one at the Watergate and its aftermath.
The boys came home to less than
nothing because the country failed to concern itself with the
consequences of war before we waded in. And Christians like me
failed to spend the time to measure the cost. Instead, we were left
only to pray that God would deliver us from something we had created
out of some kind of existential need for national purpose and
excitement.
I studied in seminary the various
versions of what to the Christian constitutes a Just War.
The very first step in this process is
to divorce oneself from all partisan influence. If our allegiance
is to God and God alone, that first step should be a no-brainer.
If, however, we are merely echoing some party line, we come face to
face with our rebellion against the Rule of God.
My position in support of the Vietnam
War was not derived from a prayerful evaluation of the facts
surrounding the decision to declare war. It was about loyalty to my
country, and I let that get in the way of my faith and loyalty to my
Creator.
The first question that people of
faith ought to ask themselves is whether or not we as individuals
are justified in going to war, and if so under what circumstances.
That individual question, asked and answered 300 million times, is
the consensus of our nation. And we shall have to live with the
results.
I am stunned by the ignorance that
accompanies this matter of war. War often is designed to do nothing
more than ignite and unite the country – create a false sense of
national pride. President Clinton is accused of using war to
deflect personal criticism.
Our mistakes in international
aggression are masked by the liberal use of such terms as “freedom”
and “courage.” Failure to support our government in its lifetime
ethic of imperialism is to be accused of cowardice. Who wants to be
accused of being a coward? So we get behind Caesar, and we do so
without a thought to our obligation before God. That simply is
because we are convinced that the God who is away does not much care
about such things.
The fact is that we had better be
certain that it is freedom, and not greed, that we are defending.
And we had better be certain that our support is justified before
God.
I’m not a pacifist by any means. In
the past I have found our little wars to be of at least nominal
interest. I always got a kick out of the Reagan wars – in and out
in the middle of the night. But this Iraq Mess brought me to my
knees.
The Iraqi Resolution:
It was February, 2003. I was a
freshman Republican legislator, feeling my way along in the first
month or so of my first term.
Out of nowhere came a non-binding
resolution before the House, reported to be politically motivated by
a left-wing operative in the Maine Senate. The source of the
document was the least of my concern. But its language asked the
President of the United States to exhaust all avenues of diplomacy
before going into war in Iraq.
The Republican caucus in the House
loudly declared the resolution to be a “waste of our time.”
The Democratic majority insisted that
the welfare of our young people was an imperative, even though such
a resolution might never see the light of day.
As a businessman, my position on the
matter met a test of logic. But as a theologian, pastor and
fellow-Representative, I was ashamed that, while my decision may
have been logically correct, it was not made on the ground of the
faith in which I profess to walk.
While I joined in the call for
exhausting all diplomacy, I did not join for the right reasons.
Just War, you see, is a measure by which the Christian can determine
at what point war is justifiable. But the process of subjecting a
potential conflict to the Just War analysis has a flip side. It is
also a means by which war can rationally be avoided. Notice the
word “avoided,” as opposed to “prevented.”
Seeking to restrict and reduce the
horrors of war by establishing a set of conditions that must first
be met if the decision to go to war is to be justified is the ground
upon which such a decision should be made. These conditions require
that we come to conclusions that override a presumption in favor of
peace. But the preference must always be in favor of peace.
When the vote was taken, I was the
only Republican in the 151-member Maine House of Representatives who
voted for the resolution.
It went down to the Senate, and I
became the only elected Republican in the entire State of Maine who
voted for diplomacy over war.
No one at that time had any misgivings
about the vile behavior and the potential world threat of the Iraqi
government. In fact, Iraq was one of any number of oppressive
regimes around the world, including the American puppet nation of
Haiti.
No one had any illusions about the
oppression of the Iraqi government against its people. No one had
any doubt that Iraq was a potential exporter of terrorism and, as
such, was a direct threat, not only to its neighbors, but also to
the world at large.
But if these facts alone were enough
to justify a preemptive, unilateral strike against the government of
Iraq, then we as citizens of the United States of America are
destined to be greatly at odds with scores of other nations.
The case for peace is always present
in the air. But the case for war is a matter of judgment that
varies all over the political landscape, unless, of course, we hold
to an objective test for Just War.
Waste of Time?
Something as divisive and personal as
discussion about sending our young people across the world to fight
can never be a waste of time, especially in the local community
where the loss of life is most keenly felt. This matter holds huge
symbolic value and may well be an accurate reflection of the
political climate out there where it counts.
Legislators are elected by local
districts and ought to be particularly sensitive to national issues
that affect the health and welfare of those whom they represent. To
think that matters of war and peace are a waste of time is to ignore
those we were elected to defend.
The natural tendency of all of us is
to wish the big things would go away so that we can concentrate,
undisturbed, on the little things. But there are times when issues
are bigger than our power to choose. A call from a constituent
reminded me after my vote hit the newspapers that the professing
church seems always to be strangely silent in the debate on war.
“Where is the church?” she asked.
Elements of Just War:
There are three elements of the just
war test. The first is “Just Cause.”
The Catholic Catechism limits just
cause to cases in which “The damage inflicted by the aggressor on
the nation or community of nations is lasting, grave and certain.”
To expand the meaning of “damage” to “potential damage” so as to
justify preventive military force is to change the intent of the
test.
Diplomatic efforts, weapons
inspections and economic sanctions intended to halt the
potentially-dangerous behavior of the Iraqi government are clearly
distinguishable from military action intended to put an end to that
government’s existence.
The second element is “Legitimate
Authority.”
The authority granted to the President
by the Congress to declare war is customarily tempered by some sort
of present danger recognized by a broad consensus in the
international community. At the very least, this authority should
take the form of the kind of action we have previously secured
through the UN Security Council.
Our membership in the United Nations,
rightly or wrongly, assumes that the UN Security Council is the
place where would properly be weighed the collateral damage, not
only on the Iraqi civilian population, but also on global economic
and military stability.
The third element is “Probability
of Success and Proportionality.”
Success is a term that we know to be
relative. If we were to measure the success of the Afghan war in
terms of achieving its objective of eliminating Bin Laden, for
example, it would be considered by most to be a failure. But if we
were to measure it in terms of the de-stabilization of the Al Queda
network, it was a success.
Did a preemptive strike against Iraq
carry with it serious prospects for success, or did it ensure only
that Iraq’s already suffering population would be the victims? I
believe that our government failed to make its case for the former
by not answering the latter.
It was persuasively argued that a
unilateral war against Iraq would further destabilize the fragile
Afghanistan government and, instead, severely undermine our
Congressional and UN mandate to stamp out terrorism. The collateral
damage, therefore, has the potential to be enormous, putting at
further risk the lives of our own families.
Summary:
1. Just
Cause: The action taken by the Bush
administration failed to meet the “just cause” test. There is no
evidence, as yet, to confirm that Iraq was an aggressor nation or
that its actions were likely to be “lasting, grave and certain.”
That is not to say that the threat was not present, but even the
level of the threat is in question by many. Until that evidence is
conclusive, the war fails to meet the “Just Cause” test.
2. Legitimate
Authority: Unilateral war against the
Iraqi regime, without the blessing of either the UN Security Council
or a broad consensus of the international community, fails the test
of “Legitimate Authority.”
Probability of
Success and Proportionality:
As applied simply to Maine’s men and women in the military, the
collateral damage has been heavy and permanent. Careers are being
sacrificed due to call-ups; men and women totally unprepared for
military action in a desert climate are being pressed into service.
We have plowed on, oblivious to the terrible mental and emotional
toll that even the highly successful Gulf War has taken on Maine
military personnel. We can expect the same result, only far worse,
from a protracted conflict. Add to this the probability of the
destabilization of Afghanistan, the empowerment of North Korea, the
civilian carnage in Iraq and the eruption of terrorism, and we fail
to meet not only the test for “Probability of Success,” but that for
“Proportionality.”
|
