Very interesting insight on war, and the role of the Christian in war..

Who Would Jesus Kill? Let's Find Out...

I read Doug Bandow's piece (referenced here) and also clicked to the WWJK website he mentioned to read the explanatory essay by Timothy Price. "When America goes to war," Price writes, "complete with Christians in its forces...what is the non-christian foreigner to think?" Jesus "becomes inseperable from the soldiers (good and bad) who carry out this war. Jesus becomes something other than what He really is to non-believers in these countries..."

Well, sure, if "what Jesus really is" is "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," who spends most of his time carrying lambs and patting children on the head, as depicted in the kind of pictures that Christian parents hang in their kids' bedrooms.

Doug Bandow appears to define, and limit, true Christianity to worshiping God and (peacefully) serving one's fellow human beings. Serving them by going to war on their behalf--something that, as Chuck noted in this BreakPoint commentary, has always been considered a high calling for Christians--is ruled out of bounds. Bandow goes so far as to say that "Pacifism is the most consistent Christian response."

Rubbish (to both Price's and Bandow's assertions). We worship a Christ who used whips to drive moneychangers out of the Temple, complimented the faith of an (enemy) Roman Centurion, and who promises fearful punishment for evil-doers.

To answer the question, "Who Would Jesus Kill?"--a question apparently intended to embarrass Christians who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--the Scriptures are filled with instances of God either killing people directly (as He did with the great flood, the plagues of Egypt, and, in the New Testament (as with Ananias and Sapphira) or instructing others to do so, such as when He ordered the Israelites to "totally destroy" the Canannites, along with six other nations, showing them no mercy. We even read that he ordered the Israelites to "attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." Talk about total war...

In giving commands like these, God did not seem overly concerned about how the enemies of his people would view Him. Instead, He is concerned with justice, righteousness, and protecting HIS people.

We also have the example of King David, a man after God's heart, who wrote many psalms that spoke of his desire that God would "take out" his enemies" (God frequently obliged).

Of course, one could argue that America's wars to free millions enslaved by tyrants and to defend us against terrorists--unlike biblical wars--are not righteous, and many people do make that argument. But that's a different question from the one of whether Jesus is a kind of supernatural Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, all soft and gooey and non-violent, and who expects His followers to be soft and gooey and pacifistic, as well.

Those who prattle on about how Christians damage the name of Christ when they fight the kind of wars described above should recall the words of Thomas Aquinas, who applauded Christians who wielded the sword in protection of the community; so did John Calvin, who called the soldier an "agent of God's love," because "restraining evil out of love for neighbor" is an imitation of God's restraining evil out of love for His creatures.

So the answer to the question of whether Christians damage the name of Christ when they take up arms is "no." And the answer to the question, "Who Would Jesus Kill?" is: Nobody. But His holy Father has killed many, and will again, if we believe the Bible...