Peace and Justice...
Sunday we hit Matthew 5.9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." Bill took it down the road of making peace between others and ourselves "as much as possible," not as in no war. He and I, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, find the path of Christian pacifism untenable.
Bonhoeffer was a committed pacifist during World War II, until he saw the effects of the war. Yes, us living in peace as much as we can with everyone is part of who we are to be as Christians, but can we remain that way? Not necessarily. Thus, I would venture that, despite many people's contentions to the opposite, the Iraq war was a just war: it was about bringing freedom and eliminating evil/oppression/torture. However, as resolve weakened, Iraq has been left in a worse state today than it was under Saddam! Christians then were generally tolerated but ignored, today they are persecuted, killed, and otherwise driven out of their homes/businesses. Is that the only sign of a worse oppression? No, but it is a key: instead of giving them true freedom, the United State and Great Britain folded to political correctness and allowed them to become another potential Iran. Tariq Aziz, the former foreign minister, points clearly to two facets of the situation in a recent interview with the Guardian: the US and UK owe the Iraqi people a proper conclusion to the conflict and a real chance at living their lives (he called Obama a coward essentially for backing out with the withdrawal date looming) and second, he asks where the preemptive strike against Iran is. Iraq was about stopping a madman driving a bus before he could run down many people. Iran is an even worse situation, if the election riots and subsequent crackdown coupled with their almost completed nuclear ambition. But, I jump ahead of myself...
Bonhoeffer committed to pacifism as a way of loving his neighbor, but after seeing so much suffering incurred by those others, decided he had to act else he would not be loving. The analogy he used follows: if a Christian sees a mad man driving a bus, his obligation is not to follow and tend for those run down by the bus, but to stop the mad man driving the bus so that more are not run down. Thus, he became part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Not exactly the actions of a peacemaking pacifist, huh? But, as a Christian committed to making peace, stopping Hitler makes perfect sense: Bonhoeffer was attempting top stop the greater evil (stop the mad man driving the bus and the bus). Does that make it wrong?
This is the ethical dilemma I am faced with: can someone who loves Jesus and is thoroughly committed to loving their neighbor as themselves really justify doing something unloving towards one to show love towards many (tens, hundreds, thousands, or millions) more? To quote Dr. Albert Anderson (my ethics professor), "Things like this are where the rubber of esoteric thought hits the road of life experience." And he was very right...
Can I live at peace and be a peace-maker as much as possible? I hope so. Can I figure out where this quandary leads? No. Does that leave me happy? No. But I know that as longs as I am following Jesus, the issue ought to be a moot point...
Bonhoeffer was a committed pacifist during World War II, until he saw the effects of the war. Yes, us living in peace as much as we can with everyone is part of who we are to be as Christians, but can we remain that way? Not necessarily. Thus, I would venture that, despite many people's contentions to the opposite, the Iraq war was a just war: it was about bringing freedom and eliminating evil/oppression/torture. However, as resolve weakened, Iraq has been left in a worse state today than it was under Saddam! Christians then were generally tolerated but ignored, today they are persecuted, killed, and otherwise driven out of their homes/businesses. Is that the only sign of a worse oppression? No, but it is a key: instead of giving them true freedom, the United State and Great Britain folded to political correctness and allowed them to become another potential Iran. Tariq Aziz, the former foreign minister, points clearly to two facets of the situation in a recent interview with the Guardian: the US and UK owe the Iraqi people a proper conclusion to the conflict and a real chance at living their lives (he called Obama a coward essentially for backing out with the withdrawal date looming) and second, he asks where the preemptive strike against Iran is. Iraq was about stopping a madman driving a bus before he could run down many people. Iran is an even worse situation, if the election riots and subsequent crackdown coupled with their almost completed nuclear ambition. But, I jump ahead of myself...
Bonhoeffer committed to pacifism as a way of loving his neighbor, but after seeing so much suffering incurred by those others, decided he had to act else he would not be loving. The analogy he used follows: if a Christian sees a mad man driving a bus, his obligation is not to follow and tend for those run down by the bus, but to stop the mad man driving the bus so that more are not run down. Thus, he became part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Not exactly the actions of a peacemaking pacifist, huh? But, as a Christian committed to making peace, stopping Hitler makes perfect sense: Bonhoeffer was attempting top stop the greater evil (stop the mad man driving the bus and the bus). Does that make it wrong?
This is the ethical dilemma I am faced with: can someone who loves Jesus and is thoroughly committed to loving their neighbor as themselves really justify doing something unloving towards one to show love towards many (tens, hundreds, thousands, or millions) more? To quote Dr. Albert Anderson (my ethics professor), "Things like this are where the rubber of esoteric thought hits the road of life experience." And he was very right...
Can I live at peace and be a peace-maker as much as possible? I hope so. Can I figure out where this quandary leads? No. Does that leave me happy? No. But I know that as longs as I am following Jesus, the issue ought to be a moot point...
Comments
Post a Comment