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From the Editor: These are difficult questions, and there are no easy answers. We offer this article as an attempt to grapple with these issues, and we urge you to read this piece with an open mind, to search the Scriptures with an open heart, and to bring this dilemma to God before lashing out with your own knee-jerk reaction. These are not easy words to say, these are not easy times in which to live. --- Slaves of
the Enemy, Slaves of Christ In my brief 22 years on this planet, I don't believe I have ever heard the words "please pray" so often broadcast on television, the newspapers, and the Internet by news reporters and government leaders. Prominent Christians have been seen and heard in the media more than ever, each potentially with a message of good news to a nation searching for justice. Some of these Christians have responded to Tuesday's events with calls for retaliation, declaring a nation's right to defend its borders and praising the United States' free way of life. But mixing pseudo-Christian themes with nationalism is so dangerous. The speculation, war-mongering, and lack of biblical stimulus in these so-called "Christian" responses has been the most frightening thing this week. (Well, maybe the speeches on floor of Congress are more frightening, but not by much. And I don't hold politicians to as high a standard as Christians.) Here's one example. I read two or three reports from a Christian news agency/prophecy website. Within two days of the plane crashes, they had already indicted Osama Bin Laden, Sadaam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, and all "fundamentalist" Muslims as having masterminded a holy war against America and Israel. Their battle-cry for retaliation--"We really have no choice,"--included the "precedent" of Lord Chamberlain's foolhardy acquiescence to Adolf Hitler before World War II. Reading these
reports, I really hope many Christians have developed the gift of
discernment. Not only is the news speculative and unsubstantiated
and the history lesson seriously flawed, but the "Christian"
viewpoint is anything but. Most importantly, this report, and most
of the talk I have heard from prominent Christians, suffer from the
same fundamental flaw: they all treat the suspected terrorists
as the enemy, rather than as slaves of the enemy. Luke 10:18-19 2 Thessalonians
3:14-15 I Peter 5:8-9 To treat suspected terrorists as the enemy is to place God's judgment where we have no place to judge. Satan is the enemy of God. We, too, were enemies of God before we entered his kingdom because we were also slaves of the devil. Now we are slaves of Christ. James uses the language of a human being as an enemy of God (James 4), but here he is not talking about punishment, retaliation, or justice. We are taught never to treat a human being as an enemy, even if they act as our enemy. Instead, Jesus (and Paul, and the OT writers, if you really look) do not pronounce judgment on enemies because judgment is an eschatological event (Acts 17:31). Instead, we are told to live lives of humility, service, and love--not violence, wrath, and reprisal. (This is why early Christians never served in the military.) Romans 12:17-21 Matthew 5:43-47 Be wary of anyone who preaches a gospel of retaliation. Take Jesus seriously when he says to turn the other cheek. Do not become trapped in a cycle of violence. Do not buy the argument that the U.S. has a "right" to defend its borders. Even if it does have the right according to international law, Christians abandoned all rights to everything of this world when they became slaves of Christ. We have no right to anything on earth, even our bodies, even our nation, even our "freedom" (which many Christians forget is found in Jesus Christ, not the US Constitution). America still has options. It does not have to respond with a massive military strike in the name of God (when the real motives are fear, anger, racism, and ignorance). Acting justly is not the same as retaliating. Justice is compatible with loving mercy and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8); retaliation is not. Search the Scriptures (the Old Testament prophets are helpful here) to find any time when justice involved acting in one's own interests. It is always (from what I can tell) acting on behalf of those with no power (the alien, the orphan, the widow--see verses below). The U.S., the most powerful nation in the history of the world, cannot act justly if it is responding in anger to an attack on itself. Read the Psalms to see how David cried for justice from God as he fled and hid in caves, not wanting to kill the king of Israel. Beware of anyone who wants more death. Death is the final enemy (I Corinthians 15:26). Creating more death and destruction in a world being redeemed by God is to act against his covenant with creation, to place our trust in ourselves rather than God, and to work against his saving power in the universe. In all honesty, I don't know whether there is a biblical justification for national war, and, if so, whether this is one of those times. What I do know is that there are principles of peace-making presented in the Bible, and that caution and deliberation save lives and promote peace more than the "righteous anger" demonstrated on the Senate floor. The United States, especially our President and Congress, needs our prayer. Christians have a difficult predicament, living in the kingdom of God and the principality of this planet simultaneously. There are no easy answers. Search the Scriptures for yourself, ask friends around you, find out what your church has to say. Above all, stay open to the Holy Spirit and do not be caught up in the nationalism that has blinded too many Christians to God's still voice. Remember that our enemy is not human (Ephesians 6:12). As slaves of Christ, we are called to bring a message of hope--not a package of destruction--to those who are still slaves of the enemy. Justice demands it. --- In addition to those verses already mentioned, these passages may be helpful in searching for a biblical view of justice: Deuteronomy 10:17-19;
16:11; 24:10-22; 27:19 |
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