Let’s admit it. Christianity, my faith tradition, has a mixed history on war. Though Jesus embodied a radical ethic of loving one’s enemy, and though early Christianity was almost wholly pacifist, Christians have also been crusaders and war-makers.
What ethical force or light can we bring to a world still plagued by armed conflict? Far more, I believe, than the formal 'Just War' tradition. That tradition--which poses tough criteria to justify the “tragic necessity” for action, including proportionate response to the presenting danger or evil, and protection of non-combatants etc.--can still be compelling. But it can also pale in the face of non-state terrorism, faulty intelligence, or the craven arrogance of leaders and elites.
What specifically Christian reflection can contribute is something more radical.
As people whose savior, after all, died by sacred violence, we can ask even harder questions: Who are we created to be? What kind of Creator do we worship? What responsibilities are laid on us as caretakers of the earth? Are we innately flawed? Are we filled with the potential to eliminate violence among our kind? If so, how? On our own? With divine help?
In other words, Christians at our best bring a sense that we are not masters of all, but both humbly dependent and marvelously powerful. We believe human beings are meant to be accountable—for our actions, our attitudes and the habits of heart— to a higher and deeper power.
Therefore, as individual souls and as citizens, Christians bring some fundamental moral presumptions to the table. The pastor and distinguished teacher of ethics, Philip Wogaman, has written powerfully about four positive presumptions and two negative ones. We get them from the accumulated Biblical narrative, and from human experience and reflection by reason.
Positively, they are the goodness of created existence, the value of individual life, the unity of the human family in God, and the equality of persons in God; and negatively, human finitude and human sinfulness.
Wogaman sees that these moral presumptions “tilt” our reflections in definite directions. (See A Christian Method of Moral Judgment, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976. I applied his ideas in a 2004 pre-election sermon to my parish.)
On the matter of war, this means we have a presumption for peace. And it means that the burden of proof rests with President Bush and any of us who would make war.
Our congregational communities—and here I don’t mean the high-profile, highly-politicized, even presumptuously partisan ones—can be quietly powerful places of reflection on these life or death matters. We are heirs both of terrible misdeeds and also of a noble ethic. I honestly believe can we change hearts and sway policy if we wrestle honestly with both our moral roots and the facts on the ground.
Of course, that still leaves the problem of evil. But does our present war address it, or the terror rising from it? I pray for our country and our President. Their responsibilities in these days are awesome. I only wish he and others in authority would go beyond 'Just War' criteria and ask: Do we know our moral presumptions? Have we met the burden of proof in starting this war? Or in continuing it?
The American people, religious or not, are answering with sadness and rising alarm: 'No, no, and no.'
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