The dilemma of war for Christians

With wars consistently within the news, it is sweet to reflect on the biblical ethics of conflict.

Old Testament

In the Old Testament, certainly one of the Ten Commandments was, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). The conundrum is that within the Old Testament there was the death penalty, and the kings of Israel went to war, although the Levites who served on the Temple were exempt (Numbers 1:49). Some people see this commandment as simply referring to murder, but others take it literally and see it as condemning the killing of all people, including in war and capital punishment. Although wars took place, Isaiah looks forward to a future without warfare when “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4, RSV). In Isaiah, it’s written that the approaching Messiah can be called the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Jesus

Jesus famously said within the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Later in the identical chapter, he said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44). For many Christians, loving your enemies is incompatible with killing them. The example of Jesus is that he never opposed the occupying Roman forces and, in truth, rebuked Peter for attempting to resist them, even at the price of crucifixion (Matthew 26:51–52 and John 18:10–11).

New Testament epistles

St Paul wrote that we should always “live peaceably with all men” and went on to put in writing, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fireside on his head,” and he exhorted us to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:18–21, KJV). In Hebrews, it says, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy” (Hebrews 12:14). Although Paul writes about spiritual warfare and the armour of God, he never talks about physical warfare.

Early Church

In the early centuries, some Christians served within the Roman army, and a few people within the Roman army got here to Christ. Justin Martyr advocated non-violence, but St Augustine developed the “just war” theory. The problem with “just war theory” is that it will possibly sometimes be difficult to define a just war when there are rights and wrongs on each side. Jesus also condemned the Pharisees for manmade doctrines (Mark 7:6–13).

So-called “holy wars”

Throughout history, people of various faiths have declared so-called “holy wars”, but there’s nothing holy about war, and declaring a war “holy” doesn’t mean God has to support it. Rather, falsely invoking God to support war is breaking the third commandment by misusing his name and taking it in vain (Exodus 20:7). Sometimes people claim that religion has caused many wars, but it surely is tough to call many, if any, conflicts which have the Christian faith as a root cause – actually not the 2 World Wars. Wars are seldom religious, although religion has often been hijacked as a rallying call to fight a political or nationalistic agenda. For most Christians, the medieval Crusades at the moment are an embarrassing a part of Church history.

British pacifism

The Lollards, who were a pre-Reformation evangelical movement in England, didn’t agree with war and believed that invoking God’s name to justify war was blasphemous. British pacifism really dates to the English Civil War, when some Christians were disturbed that Puritans and traditional Anglicans were fighting one another. After the Civil War, the Quakers embraced pacifism with the Peace Testimony of 1660, by which they sought to guarantee Charles II of their renunciation of all “fighting with outward weapons in any way”. This was recognised by the Militia Ballot Act of 1757, which allowed Quakers to be excluded from military service.

European pacifism

Some peace churches developed in continental Europe, especially in militaristic Germany. The most well-known are the Mennonites, the Amish, the Hutterites, and the Bruderhof. These communities were persecuted by governments because they refused to be recruited into the military. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, huge numbers of those people emigrated to the USA to flee persecution, only to pass though the American Civil War, when a lot of them felt compelled to maneuver again, and plenty of went to Canada.

Pacifism within the US

Just because the English Civil War (1642–51) led the Quakers to adopt pacifism, two centuries later the American Civil War (1861–65) had an analogous effect within the US. The Christadelphians adopted the pacifist position in 1864, as did the Seventh-day Adventists in 1867. During the Great War, many members of the International Bible Student Association (IBSA) fought within the war, but within the Nineteen Thirties, now renamed as Jehovah’s Witnesses, they refused to participate in military service due to their adherence to political neutrality.

Conflicts of ethics

St Paul wrote in Romans that Christians should submit themselves to the law of the land (Romans 13:1–7). The limit for Christians is that, as St Peter and the apostles said to the Sanhedrin, “We must obey God fairly than any human authority” (Acts 5:29, NLT). There is typically a conflict of ethics and principles between obeying the federal government and living in peace with others. In this space of ethical conflict, some Christians have felt it was right to fight in some wars, similar to the Second World War, and Jesus said that “greater love hath no man than this, that a person lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), which appears on many war memorials. At the identical time, many Christians from across Christian traditions were conscientious objectors within the UK and the US.

Non-violent movements

After the Second World War, there have been some successful examples of change being made not by fighting but by non-violence. Mahatma Gandhi in India was from a Hindu background but greatly admired the person of Jesus. He practised and encouraged non-violent opposition, which helped result in Indian independence in 1947. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus, Martin Luther King advocated non-violence to oppose segregation within the US within the Sixties. Likewise, Nelson Mandela, who was from the Methodist tradition, advocated non-violence to oppose apartheid in South Africa and later advocated forgiveness and reconciliation.

Final thoughts

Christians follow the Prince of Peace, who told people to “love your enemies”. While Christians must be willing to die for his or her faith, that is sort of different from being willing to kill for it.