How should a Christian approach war?

[todaysdate]

By Ernesto Tinajero

War seduces our imagination. So much so, we believe more in war than we do in grace, or Jesus’ work on the cross. Most who go to war remember both how terrible it is and how it gave life a deeper sense than our usual mundane life. One’s life mattered and had purpose in a war. Many soldiers form strong bonds of comradeship with others during war. When bullets fly, we drop our pretenses. Everything and everyone matters in the midst of war. The only downside is the actual killing and, or being killed and general debasement that war will always devolve into. No one leaves war without scars and pains. War devours the innocent, and even our own dignity leaving nothing left in practice. Those who go into war, if they survive, have to regain their humanity. Some never do. War devastates the human spirit, but it can’t break it.

War is the devils’ greatest lie. We believe it, or want to believe it until we are actually in it. It gives us what Hollywood gives us: an imagination of glory, an imagination of righteous vengeance, which hides its true nature of gory destruction. The two most common banners for war are glory and righteousness.

So how should a Christian approach war? First, by noticing that when one follows Jesus, the benefits of war, a deeper sense of mattering to the world, the intensifying of life, stronger bonds with others, are all present in grace without the dehumanization of the spirit that war leads to. When we follow Jesus, it make us more human and more fully alive. We are fully alive without bullets spraying down our friends. Second, the default position of Jesus Christ is peace. Even in Just War Theory, we have to find reasons for a Just War. We have to vigorously look at the reasons before we choose to pick up Cain’s rock. Justice and war are like hate and love. They can’t coexist in the same space. In the various Christian positions on war: Just War Theory, pacifism and such, peace is the default and Jesus’ position. Christians can never go to war like the Pagans did, and like Achilles did for glory and honor. Though we live in a fallen world and we are tempted to revel in power of violence and we must listen to God as he spoke to Cain before he picked up the rock and rigorously ask if we have mastered our sin.

We Christians have to acknowledge the sin of the world and in ourselves. We may find war necessary in the face of greater evil. We should not fool ourselves, though. Jesus is facing the genocidal and demonic Roman Empire, answered with the cross and resurrection. When we go to war, we have to acknowledge our own sin and excitement in trying to be like Gods’ and that we are biting the forbidden fruit of being like God without God. In all wars, successful or not, we must beg forgiveness at our not mastering our own sin, just as Cain failed with his bloody rock. War practices on a mass scale original sin. Yet, when face with innocent children being beheaded, then action must be taken.

So, we are again at war with ISIS. Many find joy in the righteous banner of righting the wrongs of the past, of avenging the beheading of children and all the horror we have witness. We must remember that ISIS was started under the same banner of righting the wrongs of the past, of avenging the deaths of their children and they have a history of witness horrors we have forgotten. Let us have a heavy heart, for was we fight, we must repent.