[Announce] An essay against war

[Robert Waldrop]

The essay below is by a conservative evangelical, 
who writes clearly and compellingly about the 
bankruptcy of war and its contradictions of 
Christianity.  It is a source of great sorrow to 
me that the Catholic bishops of this nation can 
produce nothing even remotely similar to this.

Bob Waldrop, Romero House, Oklahoma city

Christianity and the War
by Laurence M. Vance

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance81.ht

This talk was delivered, at the request of 
Congressman Ron Paul, to Republican and Democratic 
staff aides of the US House of Representatives in 
Washington, DC, on May 25, 2006.

Never in my life did I ever think that I would 
find myself agreeing with Senator Ted Kennedy on 
anything. But what he recently said about the war 
in Iraq is right on:

  In his march to war, President Bush exaggerated 
the threat to the American people. It was not 
subtle. It was not nuanced. It was pure, 
unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious 
strategy to convince the American people that 
Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to Al 
Qaeda justified immediate war.

I find myself agreeing with more and more 
Democrats now-a-days, at least in their criticisms 
of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. 
Democratic Representative John Murtha, a decorated 
Vietnam War veteran, has called for the pullout of 
U.S. troops from Iraq, labeling the president's 
Iraq policy "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion." 
Another Democrat, Representative Dennis Kucinich, 
has strongly criticized the president for being 
responsible for the death and destruction that has 
taken place in Iraq.

Are these Democratic criticisms of the president 
just the result of the usual partisan politics 
that we see everyday on the House and Senate 
floor? Perhaps. I suspect that the Republicans 
would be leveling the same criticisms of the war 
as the Democrats if it was a Democratic president 
that had launched this war.

But politics or no politics - the war in Iraq is 
an unconstitutional, unnecessary, immoral, 
senseless, unjust, and unscriptural undertaking. 
It is unconstitutional because only Congress has 
the authority to declare war. It is unnecessary 
because Iraq was no threat to the United States. 
It is immoral because it was based on lies. It is 
unjust because it is not defensive. It is 
senseless because over 2,400 U.S. soldiers have 
died in vain. But this war is also unscriptural, 
and, because I am a Christian - a conservative 
evangelical Christian - I intend this to be the 
focus of my remarks.

The percentage of Americans who identify their 
religion as Christianity is higher than that 
needed in Congress to pass a constitutional 
amendment or override a presidential veto. The 
percentage of members of Congress who identify 
themselves as Christian is even higher. But as we 
have now passed the third anniversary of the 
invasion of Iraq, support for the war among 
Christian Americans continues, funding for the war 
by a Christian Congress continues, and 
justification for the war by a Christian president 
continues. And we wonder why Muslims hate us?

The subject I want to address is Christianity and 
the war. What does Christianity have to say about 
this war? What should the attitude of Christians 
be toward this war?

If there is any religion that should be opposed to 
war it is Christianity. And if there is any group 
of people in America that should be opposed to war 
it is Christians. All wars are, in the words of 
George Washington, a "plague of mankind," but this 
war in particular is a great evil. Waging the war 
is against Christian "just war" principles. 
Conducting the war is contrary to the whole spirit 
of the New Testament. Fighting the war is in 
opposition to the practice of the early church. 
Participants in the war violate the express 
teaching of the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not 
kill." Supporters of the war violate the first 
commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me."

Waging this war is against every Christian "just 
war" principle that has ever been formulated. A 
just war must have a just cause, be in proportion 
to the gravity of the situation, have obtainable 
objectives, be preceded by a public declaration, 
be declared only by legitimate authority, and only 
be undertaken as a last resort. If there was ever 
a war that violated every one of these principles 
it is this war.

The only just cause for war is a defensive one, 
but this war is clearly both preemptive and 
offensive. Governments never find this to be a 
problem, however, and routinely offer up a myriad 
of reasons why their particular cause is just. 
Propaganda and demonization of the enemy play a 
large part in garnering public support for the 
war. But contrary to government propaganda, it 
really is just as simple as G. K. Chesterton once 
said: "The only defensible war is a war of 
defense."

The "shock and awe" campaign waged by American 
forces is certainly out of proportion to the 
gravity of the situation considering that Iraq - a 
country with no navy or air force and an economy 
in ruins after a decade of sanctions - was never a 
threat to the United States. Iraq was merely the 
new enemy the U.S. military/industrial complex 
selected after the end of the Cold War.

What were our objectives in this war? Finding 
weapons of mass destruction? Removing Saddam 
Hussein? Enforcing UN resolutions? If one stated 
objective was found to be a lie another could 
quickly be offered in its place. The number and 
scope of these objectives shows that there were no 
legitimate objectives. So why did we invade and 
occupy Iraq? A student at the University of 
Illinois documented 27 reasons put forth by the 
Bush administration or war hawks in Congress 
before the war began. There have been even more 
since then. A report issued by the U.S. House of 
Representatives Committee on Government Reform 
found that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and 
Rice made a total of 237 misleading statements in 
a two-year period about the threat posed by Iraq. 
And unlike some members of Congress who do not 
read the bills they vote on, I have read the 
report.

A public declaration is for the purpose of giving 
fair warning and an opportunity for conflict 
resolution - not a rubber stamp on something that 
was already in the works.

Was the Iraq war declared by legitimate authority? 
Since when does Congress have the authority to 
delegate its congressional war-making authority to 
the president? As the "father of the 
Constitution," James Madison, has said: "The 
Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in 
the Legislature the power of declaring a state of 
war [and] the power of raising armies. A 
delegation of such powers [to the president] would 
have struck, not only at the fabric of our 
Constitution, but at the foundation of all well 
organized and well checked governments." And is 
our authority to go to war the Constitution or the 
United Nations? The "Joint Resolution to Authorize 
the Use of United States Armed Forces Against 
Iraq" that was issued in October of 2002 mentions 
the UN twenty-one times but the U.S. Constitution 
only twice.

Was the war in Iraq undertaken as a last resort? 
Hardly. As I just said, it was in the works. All 
that was needed was the "Pearl Harbor" of 
September 11th to give it some semblance of 
credibility.

But not only is this war against Christian "just 
war" principles, conducting this war is contrary 
to the whole spirit of the New Testament. Although 
the Bible likens Christians to soldiers, and the 
Christian life to a battle, the Christian's 
weapons are not carnal and his battle is a 
spiritual one. The Christian is admonished to "put 
on the whole armor of God." His only weapon is 
"the sword of the spirit, which is the word of 
God." Avoiding conflict and strife and seeking to 
do good are recurrent themes in the New Testament; 
for example: "See that none render evil for evil 
unto any man; but ever follow that which is good." 
If there was anything at all advocated by the 
early Christians it was peace, as we again read in 
the New Testament: "Live peaceably with all men."

These themes used to be on the lips of Christian 
ministers. Back before the Civil War, a Baptist 
minister writing in The Christian Review 
demonstrated that Christian war fever was contrary 
to the New Testament:

  Christianity requires us to seek to amend the 
condition of man. But war cannot do this. The 
world is no better for all the wars of five 
thousand years. Christianity, if it prevailed, 
would make the earth a paradise. War, where it 
prevails, makes it a slaughter-house, a den of 
thieves, a brothel, a hell. Christianity cancels 
the laws of retaliation. War is based upon that 
very principle. Christianity is the remedy for all 
human woes. War produces every woe known to man.

Another Baptist minister, writing in the same 
publication, lamented about the terrible truth of 
Christian participation in war:

  War has ever been the scourge of the human race. 
The history of the past is little else than a 
chronicle of deadly feuds, irreconcilable hate, 
and exterminating warfare. The extension of 
empire, the love of glory, and thirst for fame, 
have been more fatal to men than famine or 
pestilence, or the fiercest elements of nature. 
The trappings and tinsel of war, martial prowess, 
and military heroism, have, in all ages, been 
venerated and lauded to the skies. And what is 
more sad and painful, many of the wars whose 
desolating surges have deluged the earth, have 
been carried on in the name and under the sanction 
of those who profess the name of Christ.

One of the most celebrated preachers of all time, 
the Englishman Charles Spurgeon, known as "the 
prince of preachers," remarked about Christianity 
and War:

  The Church of Christ is continually represented 
under the figure of an army; yet its Captain is 
the Prince of Peace; its object is the 
establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men 
of a peaceful disposition. The spirit of war is at 
the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the 
gospel.

If there is any war in history that is contrary to 
the whole spirit of the New Testament it is this 
one. All adherents of Christianity, of any creed 
or denomination, should be opposed to this war. So 
why aren't they? Much of the blame must be laid at 
the feet of the pastors, preachers, and priests 
who have failed to discern the truth and educate 
their congregations. We need ministers who are as 
concerned about killing on the battlefield as they 
are about killing in the womb.

But not only is this war against Christian "just 
war" principles and contrary to the whole spirit 
of the New Testament, fighting this war is in 
opposition to the practice of the early church. 
Not only did the early Christians, following the 
example of the Lord himself, refuse to advance 
their ideals by political or coercive means, they 
condemned war in the abstract and did not 
participate in the state's wars. Lactantius 
describes Christians as "those who are ignorant of 
wars, who preserve concord with all, who are 
friends even to their enemies, who love all men as 
brothers, who know how to curb anger and soften 
with quiet moderation every madness of the mind." 
According to John Cadoux, the author of the 
definitive investigation of the early Christian 
attitude toward war and military service:

  The early Christians took Jesus at his word, and 
understood his inculcations of gentleness and 
non-resistance in their literal sense. They 
closely identified their religion with peace; they 
strongly condemned war for the bloodshed which it 
involved; they appropriated to themselves the Old 
Testament prophecy which foretold the 
transformation of the weapons of war into the 
implements of agriculture; they declared that it 
was their policy to return good for evil and to 
conquer evil with good.

The early Christian aversion to war was revived 
and amplified in the Reformation age by the 
celebrated Dutch humanist, Erasmus. Although he 
lived many centuries ago, Erasmus's age was not 
unlike our own. Wars and international conflict 
were the order of the day. Contention was brewing 
between the West and the Muslim world. According 
to Erasmus, the only just and necessary war was a 
"purely defensive" one to "repel the violence of 
invaders." And because he believed that war is by 
"nature such a plague to man that even if it is 
undertaken by a just prince in a totally just 
cause, the wickedness of captains and soldiers 
results in almost more evil than good," Erasmus 
insisted that "all other expedients must be tried 
before war is begun; no matter how serious nor how 
just the cause." He chastised Christians for 
reproaches vomited out against Christ by nations 
of unbelievers "when they see his professed 
followers" warring "with more destructive 
instruments of mutual murder than pagans could 
ever find in their hearts to use." Erasmus also 
recognized that rulers incite war "to use it as a 
means to exercise their tyranny over their 
subjects more easily." As our Founding Father 
James Madison has said: "If tyranny and oppression 
come to this land, it will be in the guise of 
fighting a foreign enemy." The authority of the 
legislature and the force of law that thwart 
government power in peacetime quickly diminish 
during times of war. "Once war is declared," says 
Erasmus, "the whole business of the state is 
subject to the will of a few." He even noted how 
the issues of national security and public safety 
were used by the government to elicit support for 
war. Although Erasmus had never heard of George W. 
Bush, he nevertheless remarked in his The 
Education of a Christian Prince that "it happens 
sometimes that princes enter into mutual 
agreements and carry on a war on trumped-up 
grounds so as to reduce still more the power of 
the people and secure their own positions through 
disaster to their subjects." Here again is 
Madison: "Of all the enemies to public liberty, 
war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it 
comprises and develops the germ of every other. 
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed 
debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes 
are the known instruments for bringing the many 
under the domination of the few." Would the 
Founding Fathers even recognize the bloated 
monstrosity we call the federal government - a 
government that spies on its citizens, confiscates 
30 to 40 percent of their income, and regulates 
every part of their life?

Participants in this war violate the express 
teaching of the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not 
kill." I have been told that this commandment does 
not apply to killing in war. Not to killing in a 
just war or a defensive war, but to killing in 
war. The result of this warped reasoning is the 
teaching that if even the war in Iraq is 
unconstitutional, senseless, immoral, and 
unnecessary, Christians can still in good 
conscience join the military and go to Iraq to 
bomb, maim, interrogate, and kill for the state 
simply because the state says so. U.S. soldiers 
killing for the state in Iraq cannot claim to be 
acting in self-defense because the war itself was 
not for self-defense. It was an act of naked 
aggression that was supposed to be a cakewalk, but 
it backfired with disastrous results for the 
United States. Is killing someone in a foreign 
country instead of on U.S. soil what distinguishes 
killing from self-defense and murder? Or is it the 
wearing of a uniform?

There has persisted throughout history, quite 
unfortunately, the idea among some Christians that 
mass killing in war is acceptable, but killing of 
one's neighbor violates the sixth commandment. I 
have termed this Humpty Dumpty approach. We can 
see this attitude in the ancient Romans. The 
aforementioned Lactantius said of the Romans of 
his day:

  The more men they have afflicted, despoiled, and 
slain, the more noble and renowned do they think 
themselves; and, captured by the appearance of 
empty glory, they give the name of excellence to 
their crimes. Now I would rather that they should 
make gods for themselves from the slaughter of 
wild beasts than that they should approve of an 
immortality so bloody. If any one has slain a 
single man, he is regarded as contaminated and 
wicked, nor do they think it right that he should 
be admitted to this earthly dwelling of the gods. 
But he who has slaughtered endless thousands of 
men, deluged the fields with blood, and infected 
rivers with it, is admitted not only to a temple, 
but even to heaven.

Writing before Lactantius, Cyprian speaks of the 
idea held by some that "homicide is a crime when 
individuals commit it, but it is called a virtue, 
when it is carried on publicly." Erasmus addressed 
his fellow Christians about this same thing, and 
Charles Spurgeon has likewise said:

  If there be anything which this book denounces 
and counts the hugest of all crimes, it is the 
crime of war. Put up thy sword into thy sheath, 
for hath not he said, "Thou shalt not kill," and 
he meant not that it was a sin to kill one but a 
glory to kill a million, but he meant that 
bloodshed on the smallest or largest scale was 
sinful.

Supporters of this war also violate the first 
commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me." Many American Christians have a warped "God 
and Country" complex which inevitably elevates the 
state to the level of God Almighty. If the state 
dictates that an intervention, invasion, or war is 
necessary then by God we must support the 
president and the troops no matter what. But the 
government of the United States and Christianity 
is a most unholy alliance. It has been soundly 
argued by the Foundation for Economic Education 
president, Richard Ebeling that "there has been no 
greater threat to life, liberty, and property 
throughout the ages than government. Even the most 
violent and brutal private individuals have been 
able to inflict only a mere fraction of the harm 
and destruction that have been caused by the use 
of power by political authorities."

When it comes to defending, believing in the 
legitimacy of, and carrying out the evil dictates 
of the state, Christians are under a higher 
authority. There are numerous examples of this in 
the Bible that the Christian can look to, like the 
Hebrew midwives, who were commanded by the state 
to kill any newborn sons, but because they "feared 
God," they disregarded the command of the king.

Christian warmongers are idolaters, as the famed 
Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in 
Omnipotent Government:

  Modern war is not a war of royal armies. It is a 
war of the peoples, a total war. It is a war of 
states which do not leave to their subjects any 
private sphere; they consider the whole population 
a part of the armed forces. Whoever does not fight 
must work for the support and equipment of the 
army. Army and people are one and the same. The 
citizens passionately participate in the war. For 
it is their state, their God, who fights.

The attitude of the Christian toward the state 
should be no different now than it was in the days 
of the apostles. Peter and John were brought 
before the authorities and asked: "Did not we 
straitly command you that ye should not teach in 
this name? And, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem 
with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's 
blood upon us." It was then that the apostles 
uttered that immortal line: "We ought to obey God 
rather than men."

There is much more that could be said in 
opposition to this war besides the fact that it is 
contrary to every precept of Christianity. It was 
based on lies. It has created more terrorists than 
existed before the war. It has increased religious 
tension around the globe. It has done irreparable 
harm to the Middle East peace process. It has 
increased the hatred of America and Americans the 
world over. It has cost the taxpayers of this 
country over $200 billion, plus billions more for 
the forgotten war in Afghanistan. It has hurt the 
reputation of evangelical Christianity among 
non-Christians because of Christian support for 
the war. It is against the noninterventionist 
foreign policy of the Founding Fathers. It has 
wasted the lives of over 2,400 American soldiers. 
It has horribly wounded thousands more American 
soldiers. It has caused American families untold 
grief over their dead loved ones.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that this war is 
abhorrent to Christianity. The attitude of each 
individual Christian toward this war should be 
likewise. Unfortunately, however, this is not the 
case. Why? Why do some Christians continue to 
defend, tolerate, or make excuses for this unjust, 
immoral, and unscriptural war?

Here are five reasons why I think some Christians 
continue to support this war.

First, the September 11th terrorist attacks. Some 
Americans, including Christians I have talked to, 
continue to believe that Iraq was behind the 
September 11th attacks - even though the president 
himself now says otherwise.

Second, support for the nation of Israel. 
Evangelical Christians, as am I, are typically 
supporters of Israel, as am I. But what they fail 
to realize is that the nation of Israel is not the 
government of Israel - a corrupt government 
propped up by billions of dollars in U.S. foreign 
aid. And Iraq was no threat to Israel anyway.

Third, the religion of Islam. Some Christians are 
indifferent toward the war because it is just 
Muslims who are being killed. But what about the 
blood of over 2,400 dead American soldiers? Does 
killing Muslim infidels make their sacrifice worth 
it?

Fourth, the military. There is an unholy alliance 
between evangelical Christians and the military. 
Yet, the military in its present form does little 
to actually defend the country. Why isn't the U.S. 
military guarding our borders and patrolling our 
coasts instead of guarding the borders and 
patrolling the coasts of other countries? The 
president recently called for the stationing of 
some National Guard troops along our border with 
Mexico. It is too bad these troops sent to guard 
the Mexican border weren't taken out of Iraq.

And fifth, the conservative movement and the 
Republican Party. Many Christians, who by nature 
are conservative people, are in bed with the 
conservative wing of the Republican Party. But 
this is clearly a case of spiritual adultery. I am 
sorry to say that Conservatives have of late been 
known for their readiness to engage in military 
adventure throughout the world and the fact that 
they never met a federal program they didn't like 
as long as it furthered their agenda. Conservatism 
is fast becoming a movement that puts love of the 
state and its leader above all else, including 
liberty. Lew Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von 
Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, has 
brilliantly summarized what is wrong with modern 
conservatism:

  The problem with American conservatism is that 
it hates the left more than the state, loves the 
past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment 
to nationalism than to the idea of 
self-determination, believes brute force is the 
answer to all social problems, and thinks it is 
better to impose truth rather than risk losing one 
soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea 
of freedom as a self-ordering principle of 
society. It has never seen the state as the enemy 
of what conservatives purport to favor. It has 
always looked to presidential power as the saving 
grace of what is right and true about America.

The Republican Party has historically been the 
party of militarism, big government, plunder, 
compromises, and sellouts. Not in his wildest 
dreams could Lyndon Johnson have ever imagined his 
Democratic-controlled Congress increasing total 
spending or the rate of increase in spending as 
much as George Bush and his Republican-controlled 
Congress have done. And he too was fighting a war.

I do believe that the support of Christian 
evangelicals for the president and his war is 
waning. Perhaps it is not out of principle, but at 
least support for this war has diminished somewhat 
(although gullible Christians can be counted on to 
support the next intervention or war if a 
Republican president undertakes it). But it is a 
blight on Christianity that many of those who 
continue to support Bush and his war are 
evangelical Christians. To their everlasting 
shame, I suspect that it is evangelical Christians 
who will support Bush until the bitter end - no 
matter how many more U.S. soldiers are killed, no 
matter long the war continues, no matter how many 
more billions of dollars are wasted, and no matter 
what outrages the president commits against the 
Constitution, the rule of law, and Christianity 
itself.

What, then, should be done? We should immediately 
withdraw our forces from Iraq, not because the war 
is not going as planned, not because we have 
suffered too many casualties, not because we have 
removed Saddam Hussein, not because we have 
accomplished our mission, not because there are 
too many insurgents, and not because Iraq had an 
election. We should withdraw our troops because 
the war was a monstrous wrong from the very 
beginning. How many more dead American soldiers 
and billions of dollars will it take before we 
finally say enough is enough? How many more dead 
American soldiers and billions of dollars will it 
take before the members of Congress say enough is 
enough? King Solomon, the wisest man who ever 
lived, said that there was "a time of war." This, 
my fellow Americans, is not the time.

June 3, 2006

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] is a freelance 
writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and 
economics at Pensacola Junior College in 
Pensacola, FL. He is also the director of the 
Francis Wayland Institute. His new book is 
Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the 
Warfare State. Visit his website. 
http://www.vancepublications.com/

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com