Which means, I think, for this discussion, that the Christian presumption is heavily against war. That is, we practice suspicion about war because war is almost always first about extending the power, riches, pleasure, and honor of one’s self and one’s friends.
Grant is right that the New Testament doesn’t give a long-lasting meditation on war and I’m not sure we need to say that the New Testament would come down for or against war in general. The New Testament, along Grant’s lines (see Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus and Richard Hays’ The Moral Vision of the NT for decent extensions of the argument that Grant makes), regards discipleship to be a discipleship of participating in the patterns of Jesus’ life – meaning that being like God – or getting resurrected – comes only through a life of cross-bearing – or, as I like to say, confrontational embrace.
So, given that Christians are people who confrontationally embrace themselves and others, absolute utilitarian war or war for the sake of more oil is demonic. If we wage war, it is a different kind of war (most international agreements on war implicitly acknowledge the Christian just war tradition since Augustine).
The trouble with this war, it seems to me, is that we’re just not sure about the end of this war (too much appearance of conflicting interests in the Bush folks) and that the authority to wage this war pre-emptively is questionable (it is more like a policing act, which means the U.N. has to be involved).
On the other hand, I think that we don’t need one Christian mode of action on this. We need Christian action that is symbolically coherent, not logically coherent. Some of us ought to be staunch pacifists and some of us ought to be willing to fight in just wars in order to decrease the amount of possible damage done in the war.
So, if SandyWilbur is becoming convinced by the Spirit that she/he is a pacifist, I say she should be a pacifist. In fact, we need her/him to be a pacifist. As a pacifist she presents a clear vision for those of us willing to fight in just war – that war is ultimately unsatisfying, that we don’t want any more of it, and that hope is not a calculation of interests. Hope endures things that seem hopeless (i.e. the inevitability of war for some end better than not fighting with violence).
kstarkenburg
Apr 03 2003
10:33 am
Which means, I think, for this discussion, that the Christian presumption is heavily against war. That is, we practice suspicion about war because war is almost always first about extending the power, riches, pleasure, and honor of one’s self and one’s friends.
Grant is right that the New Testament doesn’t give a long-lasting meditation on war and I’m not sure we need to say that the New Testament would come down for or against war in general. The New Testament, along Grant’s lines (see Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus and Richard Hays’ The Moral Vision of the NT for decent extensions of the argument that Grant makes), regards discipleship to be a discipleship of participating in the patterns of Jesus’ life – meaning that being like God – or getting resurrected – comes only through a life of cross-bearing – or, as I like to say, confrontational embrace.
So, given that Christians are people who confrontationally embrace themselves and others, absolute utilitarian war or war for the sake of more oil is demonic. If we wage war, it is a different kind of war (most international agreements on war implicitly acknowledge the Christian just war tradition since Augustine).
The trouble with this war, it seems to me, is that we’re just not sure about the end of this war (too much appearance of conflicting interests in the Bush folks) and that the authority to wage this war pre-emptively is questionable (it is more like a policing act, which means the U.N. has to be involved).
On the other hand, I think that we don’t need one Christian mode of action on this. We need Christian action that is symbolically coherent, not logically coherent. Some of us ought to be staunch pacifists and some of us ought to be willing to fight in just wars in order to decrease the amount of possible damage done in the war.
So, if SandyWilbur is becoming convinced by the Spirit that she/he is a pacifist, I say she should be a pacifist. In fact, we need her/him to be a pacifist. As a pacifist she presents a clear vision for those of us willing to fight in just war – that war is ultimately unsatisfying, that we don’t want any more of it, and that hope is not a calculation of interests. Hope endures things that seem hopeless (i.e. the inevitability of war for some end better than not fighting with violence).