Thought this was a good simple explanation of church history - and also of relevence today.
An excerpt from a Ciaron O'Reilly reflection on a recent debate he participated in with Assistant British Military Chaplain General Land Forces and Principal RC Chaplain at the V1 Form Theology conference at St Mary's School, Ascot, England :
I pointed out that there has been 3 responses to the issues of war and violence in church history....
1. Pacifism for the first 3 centuries, pracitsed and taught by Jesus living under the Roman colonisers and the Herodian collaborators -embraced by the Catholic Worker movement and other remnants of radical disciplehip.
2. The Just War theory thought up by Augustine after the 3rd. century Constantine shift when the church was legalised, patronised by the emperor and was fasttracked to become basic to Roman citizenship. This "Constantine Shift" turned christian ethics on its head. The ethical question of how do you run the Roman (British, Portugese, Spanish, any empire ) in a Christian way? should never have been our problem...like how do you run a firing squad in a christian way? is not our problem either.Both recent popes have mused that given the nature of modern warfare technology the a just war may now be an impossibilty (eg. your not supposed to kill civilians for starters!)
3 Crusades - "kill em all and let God sort them out". Theologically discredited in the Catholic tradition but is very much the theology of nuclear weapons, aerial and naval bombardment which is basic to the present wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Dear Simon;
I am a Special Forces Officer and veteran of combat in Afghanistan.
The 6th Commandment of the Christian Bible (and Jewish Torah) is "Thou Shall Not Kill" or "Thou Shall Not Murder" depending on the translation of ancient Hebrew.
I prefer the "Thou Shall Not Murder" as it is the more accurate translation.
Becoming a Christian is not a suicide pact. It does not mean that now as I am a Christian that anyone can come and beat me or kill me, rape women in my house and take anything you want from me and I will not fight back. That I will just lay there as a slug (or run away) because of my religion.
Defending yourself is not murder. This is very clear in the Bible.
Also, "Thou Shall Not Murder" ties in completely when Jesus was asked what he thought was the greatest of the 10 Commandments
Matthew 22:37-40 -- Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
And Jesus also said "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Luke 6:31; Luke 10:27 (affirming of Moses) and Matthew 7:12)
If I saw "bad men" breaking into my neighbor's house, I would go and defend my neighbor. I would willingly put my life in danger to prevent my neighbor from getting murdered, raped or beaten. That is also the way I would want my neighbor to treat me. I would be a coward and a very bad neighbor if I knew bad men were killing my neighbor and raping his wife and I did nothing. I would be evil if I justified "doing nothing" because I am a Christian.
What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong, but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord."
As far as being a soldier in the American Army. The American Army and the American solider does not invade countries for money or booty or for power (as most armies do). We go (and fight and die) in hard places around this brutal world to liberate people and to bring freedom. This is what good neighbors do. I would leave the American Army if we invaded Iraq just to kill or Iraqis or invaded Afghanistan to take all their gold and make them slaves.
We were attacked on 9-11. 3,000 American died. More Americans will die if the terrorists are not confronted. We either go after them or surrender to them. Again, being a Christian or a Christian nation is not a suicide pact. It does not mean you just lay there and let people do whatever evil they want to you without fighting back.
Self defense is not immoral - not by an individual or by a nation.
God sent David to slay Goliath. Did God break his own Commandment?
Just the way I see it.
Best Regards,
2banana
PS: Just to put a little context to the Crusades.
The Muslims wage unceasing war against the Christian Byzantine Empire (Eastern Europe)and take Rhodes and Crete (parts of Greece)...
They launch several assaults against Constantinople (the capital of Byzantine Empire) and expand into North Africa and Central Asia...
They conquer Spain in the west, and move into northern India in the east...
They attack all the way into the northern half of France but are finally stopped at the Battle of Tours...
Infighting between arab and non-arab muslims weakens and divides the empire but attacks continue on Christian territory as Sicily is conquered and mainland Italy suffers plundering raids...
Muslim pirates raid the coasts of Italy and the Byzantines beg for help after a major defeat...
THEN the first crusade starts.
Not excusing what was done, but theres a lot of history prior to the first crusade that always seems to be left out.
Interesting post Simon, gives food for thought. I think we certainly have to question when 'modern' strategies of war (such as aerial bombing) inevitably kill civilians and often large numbers of them - at what point is this price is too great to pay? Wherever people stand on the continueum I think we all need to consider this question in humility before God.
Appreciate your comments. Just a few points to challenge your argument...obviously would love a greater indepth conversation as i'm very keen to talk with more soldiers. Also, I respect your committment to doing good in this world and the fact that you as a soldier are ready to lay down your life for others. In fact, deep respect.
So please read these points knowing the respect I have for you :
1.) I agree becoming a Christian is not a suicide pact. I do not believe we should sit there and cop violence, rape and harm. We should fight back. Just not with the weapons of violence/tools being used against us. violence is evil. Let's not use evil for good. lets find a way to use good against evil. Jesus I think shows us how to do this.
2. Love your neighbour as yourself - well, if we did then we wouldn't harm our neighbours. Every single person in this world is our neighbour, even those who are doing violence to us or who we see as our enemy. We must do good to even our eneies. Remember the good samaration? We cannot harm our enemies. Jesus said pray for them, love your enemies. Killing our enemies is far from loving them.
3. I'm sorry to say but I have no idea why we went to Iraq - for weapons of mass distruction? well, we didn't find them and reports are coming out saying we got lied too about them. the invasion of Iraq, I think is about securing oil as it runs out around the world and also about having a war to keep the economy rolling.
4. finally, US got attacked on 9/11. Yes they did - do we go after them you ask? Why not forgive them? As Jesus did on the cross. Forgive, them they know not what they do. Lets try to imagine if US had of offered this - I can imagine a far better world. Instead of going after them, why not sit down and talk with them, why not build schools, provide food, work...As Christians we need to display a radically differnt approach based on what Jesus did - and we can...if we don't then who will?
cheers
simon
Post a Comment