The Logic of War

I am under the shadow of God's wings . . . for those who seek to destroy life, let them die
(Psalm 63:7, 9)

There is a time for war the Bible says.  The Bible says it, does that settle it?  The Bible also says there is a time for hate.  If we are to kill our enemies, should we not hate them?  Does not this make sense and seems to be so logical?  One also finds in the Bible holocausts and holy wars.  Does not war make right what is so wrong in the world?  Isn't war a reminder of how costly peace may be at times?  Are we not to defend our family and country? 

Our vacation in Hawaii climax was going to Pear Harbor.  Remember Pear Harbor.  A Japanese man thought Pearl Harbor was funny.  Is war a laughing matter?  What would the Japanese think if an American thought Hiroshima was funny?  The oldest person I ever knew was a nurse at Pearl Harbor.  I asked her if the two thousand and four hundred Americans who died was worth killing fifty thousand Japanese people?  Her response was that fifty thousand Japanese did not even equal two thousand plus Americans.  Another Christian lady told me that if China ever try to bomb our country, we would nuke them off the planet.  Pastors have told me how bombing Japan with not one but two atomic bombs saved lives in the end.

The logic is war saves lives.  We kill in the name of life.  We go to war in the name of peace.  And what about nuclear war that does not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants?  The just war theory says that is not just but somehow the just war theory is used to some how make wars just, even nuclear war.  Two people were talking about the morality of the just war theory and the whole world ending in an apocalyptic ending.  When asked what they were talking about, they responded, "Just war."

Stanley Hauerwas once proposed the idea "Can Christians at least commit to not killing other Christians?"  This sounds like a reasonable proposal until one reads the fine print because it undermines the logic of war.  Every country in the world is full of Christians.  The Catholic bomber who dropped the bombs on Japan also annihilated three Catholic churches and killed Catholic Christians.  Rawandan African Christians committed genocide and ethnic cleansing.  Didn't God also tell Joan of Arc as a French Catholic to fight war against the Spanish Catholics?  Holy war and jihad is in the Bible the story goes.  American exceptionalism is America is the only country righteous or moral enough to use violence and police other countries.  It all sounds so patriotic and logical until terrorists and radical Islam uses the same logic in fighting America.

Didn't God save the world through the violence of the cross?  Isn't God described in the Bible as a divine warrior and doesn't Jesus return as a bloody warrior in the book of Revelation?  War has been preached in American pulpits for two centuries that not only is it our civic and patriotic duty but it is also our Christian duty to fight and serve our country in war time.  Does the gospel of Jesus Christ subvert our war like nature or does our war like nature subvert the gospel?

The logic of war sounds so reasonable and logical until one begins to ask tough questions and put more light on the subject.  All the sudden there are glaring contradictions, deep black holes, and questionable morality and questionable interpretations of scripture.  The danger of war is idolatry.  In the second original planet of the apes movie ended with an apocalyptic civilization that worshipped the bomb.

The cross of Christ challenges all pretensions, loyalties, and every attempt of controlling our own destinies rather than surrendering everything to God, even our destinies.  The war memorial at Pearl Harbor is a tragic reminder of the horrors of war.   Half of those killed on that historic day were on the USS Arizona and could not escape that metal tomb of a ship.  When one stands over their watery grave and reflect, meditate, and contemplate, maybe its time to listen to the dead when it comes to war?