The Church at its best has always held up this vision of universal peace as the goal and end of human history. Yet the sad reality is that our world is not at peace. Throughout recorded history, up to the present day, nations have continued to wage wars with one another—and have continued to experience within themselves civil unrest, revolutions, and violent political upheavals.
As Christians, we find ourselves caught between our ideal of peace and the reality of the world we inhabit. We live in the tension between the already and the not yet—between our proclamation of a future reign of peace on earth and life in a world that still falls far short of that promise.
Throughout history, Christians have attempted to resolve this tension in various ways. The great church historian Roland Bainton once wrote a book called Christian Attitudes to War and Peace, which outlines three principal traditions of thought on the question.
The earliest Christians were pacifists. They taught that once you were baptized, you were called to leave the ways of the fallen world behind and start living according to the standards of God’s Kingdom. And that meant you could not be a soldier, bear arms, or even assume a position in government that might involve sending others into battle. Such occupations were off limits to members of the earliest Church.
Although pacifism eventually became the minority position within Christianity, it nonetheless remains a position to which many Christians believe themselves called to this day. Christian pacifists argue eloquently that the Gospel requires us to bear witness to the coming reign of God by being peacemakers in the present age; and that this witness entails the refusal to participate in or support war in any form.
While the Church honors the pacifist witness as the vocation of some of its members, however, it has consistently refused to require this witness of all of its members. Since at least the fourth century, the Church has recognized that some Christians have the alternative vocation to take responsibility for the safety and well-being of others in ways that might require bearing arms and even fighting in wars.
In Bainton’s scheme of Christian attitudes towards war and peace, the very opposite of pacifism is the approach known as the crusade or holy war. The crusading mentality glorifies war as an activity undertaken in obedience to God’s will. One characteristic belief of this approach is that peace on earth can only come about when God’s enemies have been defeated; and it’s our job to defeat them. The world is divided into spheres of light versus darkness, good versus evil, truth versus falsehood. There are no shades of gray. And when you’re convinced that God is on your side, and that your enemies are God’s enemies, then all kinds of atrocities and crimes against humanity become possible.
Very different from either pacifism or the crusading mentality is a third Christian approach known as the Just War tradition. This approach takes as its starting point the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. One of the earliest exponents of the Chrsitian Just War tradition was Saint Augustine of Hippo, who came to the conclusion that in a fallen and dangerous world, Christians are sometimes morally compelled to take actions on behalf of others and the common good that they would never undertake on their own behalf. Saint Augustine believed that killing in self-defense is wrong; in his view it is morally preferable to give up one’s own life than to incur the guilt of taking another human life, even in self-defense. And such was the standard pacifist view of the early Church. But, he went on to argue, those who are entrusted with the public welfare – such as soldiers, police, judges, and executioners – may be required to take life not on their own behalf but to protect and defend the innocent.
From this fundamental insight, the Church’s Just War tradition evolved down through the centuries to specify detailed lists of criteria to aid in the evaluation of whether undertaking a particular war is morally justified—just cause, lawful authority, right intention, last resort, reasonable chance of success, and so forth.
The tradition also came to articulate moral criteria for the conduct of war – such as noncombatant immunity -- to try to minimize the suffering and destruction caused by war. The Christian Just War tradition had enormous influence on secular political thought from the Renaissance on, and in particular has left its imprint in the development of international law.
Such, then, are the three principal Christian attitudes to war and peace as summarized by Roland Bainton: pacifism, crusade, and the just war. In the end, Bainton ended up endorsing pacifism as the Church’s most authentic witness to the Gospel. But different Christians find themselves in different place on the spectrum of these various attitudes.
For my part, as I’ve reflected on these questions over the years, I’ve come more and more to understand Christian ethics as involving what I like to call “default positions” that in some cases may admit of exceptions under certain well-defined circumstances.
Thus, for example, the Christian default position on marriage is in favor of lifelong marriage and against divorce and remarriage. But the default position admits certain exceptions; and in the Episcopal Church the bishop can approve remarriage after divorce on a case-by-case basis. In other words, the default position holds up the Gospel ideal; and even when we admit exceptions that doesn’t mean we’ve given up on the ideal.
Likewise, it seems to me that on matters of war and peace the Church’s default position has to be pacifism. Peace is the Christian standard and ideal; and the Just War tradition functions as a way of specifying the circumstances that may permit possible exceptions to that default position. This understanding allows us to honor both those Christians who fight and die for their country in war, and also those Christians who discern a vocation to pacifist witness both within the Church and in the wider society. Whether we agree or disagree with the stand taken by pacifists against any particular conflict, they nonetheless remind us that the Church’s default position must always be in favor of peace; and that going to war can only ever be justified when it’s absolutely necessary and completely unavoidable.
Today, then, as we pray for those who have given their lives in war, we pray also for the coming of God’s kingdom and peace on earth. And we do well to resolve never to ask our young men and young women to take up arms and sacrifice their lives when other policy options remain open.
No comments:
Post a Comment