War

The Election, Your Spirituality, & the Soul of our Nation #18

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When Jesus, God among us, was born, the angels sang “Peace on earth” (Luke 2:13). Jesus said “Love your enemies,” and “Turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39, 44). When his disciples pulled out weapons to defend him, he said “Put away your swords; he who lives by the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). I can’t be sure, but I do wonder: would Jesus look over a young adolescent’s shoulder while playing one of many violent war games on his computer and cheer for big explosions?

Right after the first Iraq war broke out, I saw a panel discussion on the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour. When asked about God and the war, a famous pastor, and then a famous rabbi said “God is with us; God’s on our side; we trust God will bring us victory,” etc. The third panelist, Rev. James Forbes, instead of commenting simply read from his Bible – those words Jesus uttered about loving your enemies, and putting away your sword. The famous pastor literally shouted at him and said “That’s not relevant now; we’re at war!” – to which Forbes responded, “If it’s not relevant now, it’s never relevant.”

Jesus’ life and death cry for peace is always relevant. The basic Christian default position will always be against war. Christian theologians are divided. Some are adamantly and always against any and every war. Others conceive of heartbreaking exceptions. The follower of Christ is likely to suspect that we get into too many wars for insufficient cause, and for self-indulgent reasons – and we shudder over the way war is glorified excessively. Some wars have been anointed as “holy war,” but the likelihood is always that it’s an all-too-human war with God pasted on the outside.

When we hear of wars elsewhere – and it’s something all the time, isn’t it? – we grieve, we pray, we sympathize with God, whose heart is shattered, and we try to understand, and even as best we’re able to press what our country does in a direction that might bring peace, and even peace with a renewed justice for all. You may have seen my talk about the war in Gaza – a classic case of a horrific event being touched off because of long decades of other horrific events, in turn touching off even more horrors, innocent victims all over the place, and yet plenty of guilt to spread around too. In a fallen world it apparently will always be so. But Lord, have mercy. And Lord, give us and those in authority the wisdom to find a way to peace.

Many believe we in the U.S. should be isolationists. Recently, a candidate declared “I don’t care what happens in Ukraine.” I get it. But God cares, and as God’s people, we care. I went with others from our church to Poland to support United Methodist churches just over the border from Ukraine who were fielding, housing, feeding and caring for refugees fleeing for their lives. This is the church’s work, always, in all places and at all times.

Being for peace does not mean being against soldiers. We honor soldiers and pray for them; we can be absolutely sure they of all people want peace. They are the ones who bear the burden when they return home only to discover grossly inadequate programs to help them with post-traumatic stress complications.

And then, it’s never about picking which side the U.S. should be on, but asking about the underlying, historic causes of a war. What unjust arrangement, what misuse of power got us to the point of a war? And can we do anything, no matter how hard, to unwind things and work toward a just solution? A pipe dream? Jesus loves pipe dreams!

The Rev. James C. Howell is senior pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. This post is republished with the author's permission from his blog.