The “Just War” theory was originally developed by Augustine to defend the Empire’s actions of arresting and killing the Donatists, with whom Augustine was having a theological disagreement. He argued that in certain situations, a war is not wrong if it furthers the cause of Christ and advances the Kingdom of God on earth.
He taught that inflicting temporal pain on someone to help them avoid eternal pain was justified. Also, Augustine believed that since God sometimes uses terror for the good of humans (a questionable premise), the church may also use terror for the sake of the gospel (The Myth of a Christian Nation
Thanks to Augustine, Christians have been endorsing wars against “Christian enemies” ever since.
But does not the life of Jesus and the truth of the Gospel cry out against this? “Declaring a war just is simply a ruse to rid ourselves of guilt” (Engaging the Powers,
The killing of others began in the very first family, when Cain killed Abel.
Why did Cain commit the first murder?
The Bible is rather vague about Cain’s motives, but the root causes appear to be a mixture of jealousy, anger, and the desire for self-advancement. We rightfully condemn Cain for his actions, but when we look at the situation from Cain’s perspective, his murder of Abel was the very first “Just War” in history. Miroslav Volf points out that Cain’s murder of Abel was governed by faultless logic:
Premise 1: “If Abel is who God declared him to be, then I am not who I understand myself to be.” Premise 2: “I am who I understand myself to be.” Premise 3: “I cannot change God’s declaration about Abel.” Conclusion: “Therefore, Abel cannot continue to be” (Exclusion & Embrace,
p. 95).
From Cain’s perspective, he had the duty and obligation to protect himself by murdering Abel. If he had admitted that God’s preference for Abel’s sacrifice was correct, then Cain would have had to face his own faults. This he could not do, and so, in self-defense against the moral challenge from his brother, Cain engaged in “Just War” against Abel, and murdered him.
It has been argued that nearly all “Just Wars” in history are of this type. We engage others in a righteous battle, defending our freedoms and liberties, not because the others are necessarily evil and wrong (thought we paint them in this light), but because the only alternative to “Just War” is to admit our own wrongdoing and faults.
And since this is what we will not do, the others must die.
So ultimately, Just War theory is about one thing:
It is either us or them.
There has never been a war in history in which the warriors from both sides did not think their cause was just. In every battle, both sides cry out to their god for victory.
Can we really believe as Christians that since we serve the one true God, our cause is more just than the causes of those we are trying to kill?
Does it not rather seem that if we truly serve the one true God as revealed in Jesus Christ that there would be no cause whatsoever for killing?
When we seek the blood of our enemies, are we not abandoning and forsaking the truth of the shed blood of Jesus, who died for His enemies?
Amen brother! We should pray and work for just peace instead and turn our swords into plowshares and machine guns into tractors.
I think you would appreciate this text I wrote a while ago on Christian pacifism: http://poweractivism.wordpress.com/peacemaking/ There you have some pacifist qoutes from several church fathers which you are free to copy and share. Yeah, you’re free to share the whole text if you like to.
God bless you!
Micael
Thanks, Micael. I will come check it out!
Interesting points, but I hope you would agree that the cases where Yahweh commanded Israel to fight were indeed just wars. Right down to the slaughtering of women and children, their actions were just because God ordered them.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we can necessarily use the same logic today, because God isn’t giving direct instructions to our country to go to war. But such a thing as just war certainly does exist when it is in fact in accordance with God’s will.
Chuck,
Well, that is a very difficult subject for me. I do believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, but with a slightly different twist than what is traditionally taught. I think that Scripture may be an accurate representation of what people did and said, and what they thought God was telling them to do… but not necessarily exactly what God was telling them to do.
So, when it is recorded that “Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Avenge the children of Israel for the Midianites'” (Numbers 31:1–2), Yahweh didn’t really speak to Moses to give him that command? I’m not sure how one can hold to scriptural inerrancy and deny such a direct statement (along with many others like it). Could you explain further please? Or point me to another article explaining this viewpoint. Thanks!
Well, it is more of a view I am toying with…
Here is a post where I propose it for further input:
New View on Biblical Inerrancy
No war is just. War is just the simple response to conflict. There is always a peaceful alternative to resolving conflict.
As long as we agree to agree. But” then our or your opinion would not matter and the ego will not allow that, pride always comes before the fall. The only way to avoid mass anihilation is to be Jesus like and follow his teachings. Until the devil is eliminated battles (wars) will continue. Peace is only achievable threw GOD.
Tough topic. Having family members who fought in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and even the American Revolution, people who believed that those wars were just, I wonder if an opinion from my armchair has as much merit as theirs.
Nevertheless, as followers of Jesus, I think our preferred path is to pursue peace whenever possible. It seems to me that we are too quick to involve ourselves in other people’s wars. I wish it really were as simple as the idea that we’re protecting the innocent.
Sam,
Yes, my father was in the Navy. I have a brother in the Air Force. But as for myself, I am a bit of an armchair theologian on this as well….
There may be just wars, but many of them are not. The question may be academic, as we live in pluralist societies, and governments and nations are rarely able to act purely on christian ethics.
But the other question is, if my government chooses to go to war, should I support it? Jesus’ commands are pretty clear – turn the other cheek, love enemies and forgive them, don’t take revenge, etc, so it would seem that refusing to fight or support in any way might be the thing christians should do, unless the war is clearly justified. If they are christians in the armed services, this makes their decision very serious.
A third question might be, which wars in the last century have been just? Perhaps WW2 but not WW1, perhaps the first Gulf war but not the second, probably the interventions in Bosnia and East Timor. But not many I would guess.
I can’t go along with the thought that Yahweh’s commands in the OT (assuming we take them as genuine commands) are a model for anything today. Jesus’ teachings surely take precedence.
Right. Whatever a person thinks about the commands to genocide in the OT, we hear nothing of the sort coming from Jesus, but exactly the opposite.
Hi guys,
Hope you don’t mind me butting in here…
Surely this question boils down to a difference between the domains of Church and State. The Church advises the state, as Nathan “advised” David. Joseph advised Pharaoh. Daniel advised King Nebuchadnezzar and Mordecai, after repenting, eventually advised Ahasuerus.
Israel could take up the sword against Canaan because 1) Israel was a church state, and 2) the Canaanites had broken the “gospel” proclaimed to them by Abraham. It wasn’t genocide. It was the exercise of the Covenant sanctions. God Himself exercised these same sanctions against Israel through Assyria and Babylon and Rome.
But after the exile, Israel was no longer an autonomous state, and this was by God’s design. Israel herself become the prophetic advisor. The “Church-State” set up in Daniel and decommissioned in AD70/Revelation was a Jew-Gentile one. The Jews could not execute criminals because they were to be a nation of priests. We see the beginnings of this in Ezra, where, all of a sudden, it is not only the genealogies of the priests that matter. By God’s command, they were to submit to their Gentile emperors, and if they did so, they would be exalted into government. They founded synagogues right across the empire, and this bore fruit, as we see in Acts. But again, they desired a king before God’s time and ended up with a new Saul, the Herods.
The sword that the Church wields is the gospel, which includes excommunication (which, biblically, is simply preaching of the gospel once again to apostates). This became distorted when the roles of Church and State were conflated. Heresy is not a crime against the state. But the exaltation of the Church under Constantine was an exaltation by God for their faithfulness.
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/03/10/a-jew-gets-baptism/
So, it is not ungodly for a Christian nation to take up the sword against Muslim invaders, for instance. Overall, I’m very thankful for the Crusades. And for WWII. And for the Cold War. Perhaps the wars since are more questionable because the West has systematically and institutionally “excommunicated” Christ, as the Herods did, and as the Roman Church did before the Reformation.
When Christian Churches, and indeed Christian nations, apostatize, Jesus brings the hordes against them. Most Christians are totally ignorant of the fact that Jesus’ and the apostles warnings concerned the end of the Old Covenant in AD70. We can certainly apply these warnings today, but the bloodshed during the siege and destruction in Jerusalem, and indeed right across the entire empire, get overlooked as the actual interpretation. Jesus came again for His own, and poured out the curses of the Mosaic Law for the last time.
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/pdf_lastdays/LastDaysIssues/16LastDays.pdf
The Gospel is the sword of the Church within its God-given domain, and if the Church is doing its job faithfully, it will be exalted as a prophetic advisor to the State, which will result in the State wielding a just sword within its God-given domain. The Gospel will always have State consequences, and to refuse to wield either sword justly is to hand the culture over to Satan.
Word inevitably becomes flesh. We must remember that both pastors and soldiers are men who are willing to die for others in their given domains. The Church doesn’t war against flesh and blood. That is the job of the State.
I highly recommend “The Handwriting on the Wall” by James Jordan:
http://www.americanvision.com/products/The-Handwriting-on-the-Wall%3A-A-Commentary-on-the-Book-of-Daniel.html
Mike,
You make good points and draw some good distinctions.
I have some “theories” about war and violence, but having read very little, and seriously studied the issue even less, have few firm convictions.
My main issue is how the church can look the most like Jesus. I just struggle with whether we can get Jesus to lead us off to war.
As you say, maybe He doesn’t. The state does. Fair enough. But what about when the church endorses the actions of the state and says that God is behind a particular war? Then I get a little nervous…
Thanks Jeremy. You have a heart for God.
I’ve fleshed this out a bit better here:
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/04/26/just-war/
Some of your ideas I agree with, in some cases I would ask “OK, but is that really the way we should do it, or is that just the way we choose to do it and have learned to justify?”
One of your point I really don’t understand though. Given that you’ve discussed a paradigm where the proper role is for ‘the State’ (or a nation) to exist and make decisions in ruling itself and perhaps relating to other nations, but it must be operating with with ‘the Church’ advising it; you say:
“Perhaps the wars since are more questionable because the West has systematically and institutionally “excommunicated” Christ, as the Herods did, and as the Roman Church did before the Reformation.
When Christian Churches, and indeed Christian nations, apostatize, Jesus brings the hordes against them.”
Here, I could understand how you might be describing the West as having ‘excommunicated Christ’ in that Western thought has ideas like separation of Church and State and many tend to believe that government should not be informed by ‘the Church’, thus leaving the working paradigm you establish.
Where I don’t follow is your examples of the Herodian dynasty and the Roman Church. You might argue that they failed to follow God well, or even that they deliberately forwarded their own agendas in the name of God, but I don’t see how they ‘excommunicated Christ’, they did not lead their people saying that their spiritual authorities (the Church) would no longer be advising their governing authorities (the State) – quite the opposite. Or were you only saying that the modern Western nations had ‘excommunicated Christ’ and that was one form of apostasy and your other two examples were other forms of apostasy that were likewise punished by God?
Thanks John – good questions.
Yes, you are right. The separation of Church and State has been misused in order to shut the Church up. The original intent has been distorted. This means that the State will become increasingly godless, not just concerning morality but also in actual wisdom in its decisions.
Neither the Church nor the State will be perfect this side of eternity, but Jesus, by His Spirit is working to unite the nations with the Gospel — lined up like gemstones on His breastplate instead of continuing as warring tribes. Any other attempt at unity (such as the European union) will fail.
This is exactly what happened with the “feet of clay” of the four empires. The Roman iron would not mix (literally “intermarry”) with the Edomite clay of the Herods. This theme of Covenantal intermarriage goes back to Genesis 6, where the divided lineages of Cain and Abel are reunited on ungodly terms. It is a union of Church and State on the State’s terms. We see it again many times, particularly in Omri’s (an evil version of King David) attempt to reunite north and south, and then Solomon’s marriages. There were also godly Gentile marriages, as you know (Ruth, Samson’s first wife, Joseph’s wife, Solomon’s Egyptian wife) because they involved the conversion of the outsiders. This is all a microcosm of the Church/State relationship.
Jesus said that men would be marrying and giving in marriage in the last days of the Old Covenant just as it was in the days of Noah. The fourth beast in Daniel 7 was Rome, but it had no face. The face of Rome was the Herodian state, a “Church” that had used its advisory role to gain political power through compromise. The fact that the Herods descended from Esau takes us right back to the Church-State relationship between Cain and Abel. Cain usurped Abel’s priestly role and started his own church-state, one of vengeance instead of mercy, of accusation instead of advocacy. This is how things were in the first century.
At Pentecost, Jesus really turned the lights on. Now it was not only He would know men’s hearts — the Spirit of God would allow His people to discern the spirits. As with Saul and David receiving different spirits, the Jews who rejected Christ became more and more demonic, leading to the destruction of the city. The final straw was AD64, when the Temple was completed and Nero torched Rome. This is what all the final epistles were warning about – Jew AND Gentile, Church AND State, united against the true Church just as they had united against Christ.
We see a replay of this during the Reformation. The Herods, and the Roman Church, devoured their brightest lights, which brought about their end. The Herods excommunicated Christ as Christians were no longer allowed into the Temple. The Roman Church persecuted those prophets who were trying to save her, and she was disempowered. The difference is that Rome as a Christian Church, and can be revived by returning to the Word. Judaism was finished in AD70. There is longer any Jew-Gentile divide as far as God is concerned. Being a Jew was an office delegated by God, and that was decommissioned with the Temple.
So, although those apostate Churches were still advising the State, they had rejected the Word of God and become false prophets crying “peace, peace.” It’s incredibly interesting that the nations and cultures that have dominated the world for two millennia are the Christian ones. And when they reject the Word of God, their power is removed. China’s population is 10% Christian. There are more Christians in China than in North America. But China doesn’t have a history of Christian wisdom — except what is has recently gained from Hong Kong via the British Empire.
I could keep rambling on but I hope that answers your questions to some degree.
Another thought – it’s interesting that marriage, till recently, was an act carried out by both Church and State, that is, legal and relational. The relationship between these distinct authorities is supposed to be very similar.
I’d start with a practical matter. In 1801 President Jefferson dispatched navel vessels to Tripoli because the pasha declared war on our new republic. Jefferson refused to pay $225,000 and another $25K/yr. (This was basically the birth of the Marines when they were going to capture Tripoli and install the pasha’s brother). The increasing demands for “tribute” for protection could have sent this new nation into ecomomic shambles. A Just War?
I offer one idea. There is a very real and active evil in this world.
Idea 2 = Appeasement will accomplish nothing but a brief repreive at best.
3) “Our” wars have liberated millions and saved countless lives.
There are those that truly believe if we disarm, our enemies will also. Iran won’t have to have a Nuke to “protect” itself from ‘American aggression & greed.’ (Some say the Jews in Israel today aren’t really anyone’s “choosen peoples” so what if they lose their supposed “homeland.” They’re just causing unrest and are interlopers on a made-up peoples REAL homeland).
Two great basically atheistic nations – China & Russia – seem to be siding with Iran & Islam. (Except in their own territories where the take rather draconian measures against them).
Israel has seen 65 years of statehood only because they were willing to say, “Never Again!” Anyone that questions the probability of their staying power against all odds and God’s intervention deserves to edify themselves by looking into some of the battles they’ve waged.
How has the carrot-stick approach with North Korea worked out so far? You want to see evil – look at a satelite photo of the Korean penisula at night.
Christians, as well as those other infidels, around the world are being slaughtered, beheaded, burnt up and bombed daily.
We now seem to have a sliding moral scale when it comes to Islamic uprisings around the globe. Darfur and the Sudan is no less a stain on an upright people than the Holocaust.
I believe it might be more appropiate to look at this question you pose from a more specific angle. Should the US stay home and let the world take care of it’s own problems?
Should not man take a stand for civil rights and liberty wherever evil threatens to take them away – a home and abroad.
Perhaps prayer warriors serve a more “just” army in times of conflict? But, I sure am glad there are those brave souls that are willing to lay down their lives for the freedom of others.
Reference re: the Barbary Coast Pirates (Ottoman Empire) v Jefferson: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjprece.html