All people participate in war. We war against ourselves, each other, “the clock,” and Methodists on our way to Sunday lunch. Moreover, no matter what people war with or against, why they war is not as dissimilar as one might assume. Humans are simply lovers of self. We are all, at birth, imprisoned by egocentrism, but as followers of Christ our “why” has changed. No longer do we fight for our own, or our nation’s, security, safety, or success; we struggle for the gospel of Jesus Christ to reach the depths of our souls and our world. Our allegiances, though some are pledged to the United States of America, are ultimately to the Lord of all creation, including the “land where my fathers died.” My aim is to call into question the contemporary response to the problem of war and present how Christians, with regenerate hearts and renewed minds, are to contribute.
History has revealed past warriors fought for at least one of three things: their king, their country, or their convictions. This fact holds no less truth for those whom uphold a biblical worldview in their pursuit of Christ. With our King and our citizenship in heaven, we must scripturally determine what warfare in which we are called to participate. If our God makes war in the Old Testament, would we not receive justification partaking in the same actions?
War connotes violence, and violence is rarely considered to be an attribute God exudes. Jesus spoke often of the violence He must undergo for the sake of God’s kingdom. Those who claimed to be His followers, though, expected something physical to take residence. The Jews hoped for a political savior to establish their nationalistic hopes, believing God promised to vindicate their cause as His chosen people. They sought an extraordinary physical status, yet Jesus “proclaimed the institution of a new way of life, not of a new government” (Yoder, 147). Their unmet expectations pushed them to extreme expressions of the violence He spoke of.
However, Jesus understood the Kingdom of Heaven not only suffers violence, it calls for it (Matt. 11:12). He encouraged His followers to consider the outrageous costs of discipleship. Jesus assured them of suffering they would undertake, but the sword He came to bring was not implying the physical establishment or defense of a kingdom (Matt. 10:34). Worldly violence attempts to make one’s self, ideology, or nation the center of creation. It is a refusal to settle for anything short of personal well-being. “Violence is for those who have lost their imagination;” it is the mark of multitudes which lack creativity and vision (Valentine, 19). Violence is simple, a destructive declaration of one’s power over another.
Believers are undoubtedly called to violence, but a violence of pursuit and not pain. We are not to inflict discomfort but to invite a Divine transformation. Heavenly violence is a refusal to settle for anything short of Divine fulfillment, complete and perfect. It is focused, like Heaven, on the Center of all creation, the Most High God. Violence is the expression of intrinsic depravity; love is the manifestation of imputed Divinity. Kingdom violence is a relentless pursuit of love.
“In the United States Christians are not known for peace or for love; they are known as Republicans” (Valentine, 22). We are not lacking in love; we are deficient in our understanding of Divine ordination. Our problem does not take residence in our absence of knowledge, but we suffer in our perspectives; our minds, the center of the Christian, remain untouched and actions unchanged. In combating for the justification of war by the keeping of the Constitution and God’s affirmation through Paul to do so (Romans 13:1-7), we claim these encouragements supersede those Heavenly demands of loving our neighbor by the protection of our neighbor.
We seek to justify our actions with the nature of God and in so doing claim God's nature is not solely to invest in His own glory. Yet, God is zealous and loyal to His own glory alone (Isaiah 43:6-7, 48:8-11, 49:3; Matt. 5:16; John 16:14, 17:24; Romans 9:22-23; 1 Cor. 10:31). This truth changes us, God's people, to become investors in His glory. God is about God, and we, in seeking to justify war, must consider if God receives glory in our foreign disputes. Do our violent actions magnify God Almighty? The answer, though our aim is global peace, clearly specifies the obvious choice of action is not hostility. God chose to glorify Himself through Israel and often used war as a means to do so.
However, Christians cannot validate their patriotism with Jewish heritage. Through Christ and His accomplishment on the cross, salvation is now extended far beyond domestic borders. The victory of the cross is unlimited and unstoppable. We are now warriors of reconciliation; love is our weaponry. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood” and “the weapons of our warfare have divine power to destroy strongholds” (Eph. 6:12; 2 Cor. 10:4). God's glory no longer comes through natural war but supernatural quickening of the human spirit.
The only just war left to be fought is found within the pages of the Holy Scriptures testifying of the glory of Christ's return (2 Thes. 1:9-10). This battle, however, will be against the powers of hell and includes a distribution of wrath and judgment; He will destroy injustice indefinitely. Consequently, God does not desire for His people, no matter how noble the cause, to make war between nations; the Church is God’s vehicle for salvation not judgment.
Christians are called to uphold a biblical, thusly global, worldview. According to Jesus, our neighbors are not citizens with whom we share domestic borders, but those with whom we share a Creator. All people, present or future, American or Arabian, are to be loved. We do not choose whom we love; we submit to love whomever God commands. When we grasp an understanding of whom God fights for, we forfeit the desire to contest with nations and yearn to see them redeemed. Therefore, we are not called to defend our freedoms, but to fight viciously for the liberation of God’s creation by experiencing His love. We do not war against flesh, but hell and her angelic warriors; again, our weapons are not of this world “but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”
Furthermore, how can an imperfect people believing justification comes from God alone also trust their capacity to justify an unloving act on another person or nation? To declare a war just is to claim our endeavors are free from the constraints of sin and righteous in the eyes of God. Even in retaliation, the decision to wage war is, at best, a “compensatory sin, sin committed in order to secure a greater good” (Weaver, 62). Christian ends, namely peace, reached via unchristian means cannot be justified. Peacemakers (Matt. 5:9) are not peace seekers; they are ministers of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). If we seek peace without proclaiming the gospel of Christ, we are instilling in humanity an idolatrous ideology. We must lose everything for the cross; our followship depends on it.
Therefore, in its purest form, pacifism is the response found in the cross. When one turns her eyes upon the King of glory, she must also behold the crucified Savior. Jesus underwent excessive, inhumane torment and suffering without uttering one statement of resistance. He offered no objections, but humbly obeyed the will of the Father while perfectly portraying His infinite love. Christian Pacifism is an idiom, for “agape, self-giving, nonresistant love,” is not for a sect of Christianity; it is the essence of Christ, ergo the center of the Christian life (Yoder, 147). War is merely a manifestation of disconnection from love’s source.
We are to be the expression of a person connected to charity’s ever flowing Spring. In the Old Testament, Israel was whom God used to display His own glory to the nations of the world. Since the Messiah, Jesus Christ, has come and presented God’s salvation to all nations, the Church, Jesus’ followers, are now God’s chosen people used for that same purpose. We are not merely connected to love; we are controlled by it (2 Cor. 5:14). Violence cannot be deemed an act of love, and God’s greatest commandment is for us to love Him and others as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-39). “Nonresistance is thus not a matter of legalism but of discipleship, not ‘thou shalt not’ but ‘as he is, so are we in this world’” (Yoder, 148).
Pacifism, with eyes set on the cross, is love at all costs; forfeiting violent acts committed in the name of nationalism is a small price to play to gain the utmost of God's glory in this life. It is adopted for obedience in our discipleship alone, “for pacifism as a way of life is premised on the nearness of the kingdom” (Cahill, 262). Followers of the Way in the first century were not after the liberties of their nation; they violently pursued the presence of God. Pacifism is not fighting for a warless existence; it is the pinnacle of Heavenly violence, a heart ablaze with love.
“Just war and pacifism are apples and oranges, not two kinds of apples” (Cahill, 261). By engaging in “just” warfare, we are committing warlessness gained by unloving methods to be the public good and not the gospel. Peace with God is the only avenue to lasting love and unity among men, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only approach to the Creator. The cross was not endured for domestic borders. Moreover, the cross destroys any previously established national allegiances for those whom sell all they have to invest in the Kingdom of God. Believers in the just war theory do not forsake pacifism; they forfeit their pursuit of the fullness of God’s presence (Matt. 6:33).
I do not see in Scripture the responsibility of the believer to defend one’s own nation but to submit to the state in obedience unto Christ (Luke 20:25). “The Christian’s responsibility for defeating evil is to resist the temptation to meet it on its own terms” (Yoder, 152). We disguise our disapproval of relinquished control and fear of losing comfort with an assumed command of responsibility. This does not appear to be Christian responsibility; I am beholding an epidemic of faithlessness.
Sadly, I do see a Church separated from the Scriptures and thusly Christ: a westernized Christian mindset which assumes responsibility is left in the hands of the sons and not the Father. Would a father leave his children to fend for themselves? How can we assume God has left His people to fight a physical battle to secure a supernatural inheritance established at the cross? If all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus by the Father, all evil must bow down in service to His ultimate purposes. Scripture is laced with God fighting for His people. Therefore, any possible suffering or persecution the Church may undergo would essentially be edification, an inheritance of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:10). Moreover, “the Church’s suffering, like the Master’s suffering, is the measure of the Church’s obedience to the self-giving love of God” (Yoder, 151).
Pacifism is not a way of life to produce peaceful existence; it is a response to grace alone by grace alone, desiring God’s glory and the furtherance of His kingdom beyond all else. This is the epitome of worship and obedience: a heart gripped by love responding to evil with good. An act of love gives a glimpse of the cross, thus moving an individual to take steps toward glory. Jesus said “whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24). This is a beckoning neither for radicalism nor pacifism. This is total abandonment for the completion of God’s commission; this is a call for love.
