View: Road
Runners
Are politics and
government good or bad? Bad
Should laws be
based on Christian principles? No
What is the
purpose of government? Primarily order
Is civil
disobedience justified? Yes
Is political
involvement compatible with Christian faith? No
World Huggers
Good
Conditional
Justice
Yes
Yes
Brothers in Arms
Good
Yes
Order
Yes, but rarely
Yes
Tightrope Walkers
Neutral
Ambivalent
Order (no
expectation of justice)
Very rare for
Christians
Yes (but an
irrelevant question)
Transformers
Good
Possible
Order and justice
Yes, but rarely
Yes! (a Christian
duty)
Tossing political
hot potatoes
If you’ve read or
seen The Lord of the Rings, you know that Sam the Hobbit likes to prepare
potatoes by boiling ‘em, mashing ‘em, and sticking ‘em in a stew. Humans, on
the other hand, seem to enjoy heating up potatoes in the oven and then throwing
them into the political arena for everyone to burn their hands on.
Within the world
of politics, certain “hot potato” issues seem to always divide society, and to
some extent, the Church as well. Three issues in particular that often come up
in debates within the Church include war, the death penalty, and abortion.
War and peace
Talking about the
Christian response to war is timely given the war on terrorism at the turn of
the millennium and the crises that always seem to rise up in the Middle East. And
though the world faces these new challenges at the dawn of the 21st
century, the issues of war have been around since the first nations were
formed.
Jesus and the
apostles didn’t provide crystal clear direction to Christians, though the
Church can make many decisions based on the indirect teaching available in the
scriptures. Traditionally, different parts of the Church tend to come down on
opposite sides of the fence, one side arguing against any war at all, the other
side claiming that just wars are morally permissible. I explain these positions
in more detail in the following sections.
Keeping the peace
Some Christians
read the Gospels and conclude that Jesus Christ both teaches and lives out
pacifism. (Pacifism is the belief that all forms of violence are wrong,
regardless of the reason or justification behind it.) They point to his
teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he tells his followers, “Whoever
strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39).
Christian pacifists
also highlight Jesus’ reaction when he was arrested in the Garden of
Gethsemane. He not only refused to be disobedient in being arrested, but he
also chastised Peter for attempting to offer a defense (Matthew 26:50-52):
Then they came
and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. Behold, one of those who were with Jesus
stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high
priest, and struck off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back
into its place, for all those who take the sword will die by the sword.”
Christ consistently
indicated through his teaching and his life that God requires Christians to
give up defending themselves, even when it’s considered legitimate to do so. As
I discuss in Chapter 13, all Christians believe that Jesus calls his disciples
to surrender their lives to him. Given that, Christian pacifists say that
pacifism lives out that principle within the context of war.
Holders of the
Just War perspective (see the following section) often use the Israelites in
the Old Testament as an example of God’s support for war. Christian pacifists
counter by saying that war was not God’s original intention and came about only
due to sin. What’s more, they say that when Jesus came, he permanently put to
rest any need of God’s people to wage war because God’s people were now a
Church, not a political nation.
Defending by
fighting
The opposite
position Christians have held through the centuries is that, although all war
is an evil and terrible business, sometimes it’s necessary to prevent an even
worse evil. St. Augustine and, later, Thomas Aquinas searched the Bible for
answers and then devised a criteria to determine what types of wars are
legitimate for a Christian to support. Their ideas have become popularly known
today as the Just War Theory and include seven main criteria:
Just cause: The
war must be for a just cause. It should be defensive, and never any type of
unprovoked violence. During the War on Terrorism in Iraq, for example, many
Christians debated whether the United States had just cause to enter the war,
because the United States invaded Iraq. The proponents of the war said that the
United States was acting out of protection and defense, and that Iraq’s
chemical weapons caused hostility and provoked the war.
Just intentions:
The intention of the war must be just. The objective of the war must be to
secure peace, and not to go to battle purely for money, land, or politics. Greater
good must result because of the war than it would as the result of not acting
in the war. Therefore, for example, when Great Britain and the United States
fought Nazi Germany in World War II, nearly all Christians saw both Britain’s
and the United States’ motivation as just to prevent Hitler’s evil from spreading
across the planet.
Last possible
resort: War must be a last resort. The government should exhaust all possible
attempts to resolve the problem through economics or diplomacy before going to
war.
Limited objectives:
The war must have objectives that are targeted and identifiable. The goal of
the war must be peace, not complete annihilation of the enemy.
Proportional response:
The weapons used should be in proportion to what’s needed to secure peace. In other
words, you shouldn’t use a sledgehammer if a ballpoint hammer will do the trick
effectively.
Backed by
legitimate authority: A legal authority must formally declare the war. Only legitimate
governments and officeholders have the right to declare war, not any band of
mercenaries or terrorist groups.
Innocents protected:
The military should ensure, as much as is possible, that non-combatants are
unharmed. Government and military targets are acceptable, but civilian targets
are out of question.
Supporters of the
Just War Theory believe that the pacifist position (see the preceding section, “Keeping
the peace”) misunderstands biblical teaching on this issue, saying:
The Sermon on the
Mount is for individuals. They believe they aren’t overlooking Jesus’
instructions in the Sermon on the Mount (“turn the other cheek”), but believe
that it specifically applies to individuals, not governments.
God promotes
peace and war. They also suggest that the God of the New Testament is the same
as the God of the Old Testament, who mandated war at times for the nation of
Israel. Therefore, promoting only just peace or just war and wholly dismissing
the other option doesn’t square with what the Bible says.
God calls people
to administer justice. The Bible commands God’s people to defend those who can’t
defend themselves. For example, Psalm 82:3-4 says, “Defend the weak, the poor,
and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the
weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.” But in order to be
obedient to that command, one must sometimes use legitimate force.
Punishing criminals
with the death penalty
The death penalty
is a second political issue that tends to split Christians and different parts
of the Church. After all, how can a person who professes to serve a God of
forgiveness and peace justify killing a person, regardless of his or her
offense? Both sides point to the Bible to back their position:
Supporting the
death penalty: Christians who defend the death penalty hold that God’s justice,
whether on heaven and earth, requires a proportionate response for the offense.
It’s not a matter of revenge, but s matter of administering proper justice. They
point to the Old Testament Law in Israel that permitted capital punishment, or
as Exodus 21:23 memorably says, “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” They
also believe that Paul implicitly supports capital punishment in Romans 13:4 (“If
you do wrong, be afraid, for the government doesn’t bear the sword for nothing”)
and in his response to the Roman ruler Festus in Acts 25, when he says that he
won’t argue against being put to death if he’s guilty of any crime worthy of
that punishment. Churches that tend to support some usage of the death penalty
include Southern Baptists and the Lutheran Missouri Synod.
Arguing against
the death penalty: Christians who argue against the death penalty say that
capital punishment goes smack against the sanctity of life that God ordained
when he created human life. Pointing to the Sermon on the Mount, they believe
that Jesus spoke against taking the life of another when he said, “You have
heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I
tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right
cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:38-39). They also highlight Jesus’
forgiving response when the religious leaders were about to stone an adulterous
woman. When the leaders asked Jesus what they should do, he replied, “He who is
without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her” (John 8:7). Churches
that have taken a stand against the death penalty include the Catholic,
Orthodox, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, American Baptist, United
Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal Churches.
Aborting unwanted
pregnancies
The debate over
abortion is far more one-sided within the Christian Church than war and the
death penalty are. Christians on both sides of the other two issues justify
their position using the Bible, because they both deal with gray area issues
that the Bible isn’t always clear on. However, if you believe that the fetus is
a human being, then it’s frankly impossible to justify abortion by pointing to
any passage in the Bible. In fact, the Bible implicitly affirms the humanness
of the fetus in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and
before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you.”
Consequently,
biblical Christians predominately favor the pro-life position on abortion. A minority
of Christians is against abortion personally and considers it morally wrong,
but, based on political beliefs, argues against the government itself getting
involved in regulating such matters. (World huggers often have this
perspective.) Some Christians see a provision for allowing abortion in cases of
incest, rape, or potential danger to the mother, but they emphasize that the Bible
holds the sanctity of life as being one of the most precious of all God’s gifts
(1 Corinthians 3:16, Matthew 19:18, Numbers 35).
Although the Bible doesn’t mention abortion by name,
the early Church had to start dealing with this issue when Roman law began
permitting abortion during that era. An early second-century document on
Christian teaching explicitly states, “Thou shalt not murder a child by
abortion.” Through the years, some of the best-known Christian heavyweights
explicitly spoke against abortion, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and
Calvin (see Chapter 18 for more on all those guys).
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