Wars and rumors of wars

Last night in a Bible study that was supposed to be discussing why we should not be fearful despite the violence in the world, we wound up chasing a fighting rabbit down the "war" hole.

You know, the easy to answer question about whether Christians could or should be involved with war?

I stood alone in the less than thrilled about war category. I stood alone in the I wouldn't have bombed Hiroshima category. I stood alone in the we should be careful about using large brushes to paint those who oppose whomever "us" is.

I'm not sure whether, upon further review, that was a good position to be in, this alone stuff.

War, and its tributaries (the scuffle, argument, debate, fist fight, gun shot, stabbing), is a very difficut question to explore. Our Bible study went far longer than normal, and my wife said at one point I took the air out of the room with what I said. Said I should have left it alone. She's right. I should have. But even talking about wars and fighting and such brings out the combativeness in us all.

Isn't all of it really about who is being right?

Our conclusions:

Clearly the Old Testament times were filled with war, and God seems to have had no difficulty telling the Israelites to wipe out entire cultures for his purposes. That whole smashing babies heads thing is one of the most difficult things to explain in all of the Bible.

Jesus comes along and seems to change everything, telling his people to do things like love enemies and turn the other cheek. He seems to be about peace, until you read the statement he made about not coming to bring peace to families but to break them apart.

The early church danced and sang its way to death in the coliseum.
Jesus accepted his fate despite the ability to bring down legions of angels. He also had Peter put away the sword. These incidents seem to lean toward the putting away the instruments of distruction, be they mass or otherwise.

We talked about wars in the Pacific, wars in the middle east, wars and wars and wars about wars.

In the end, we answered nothing really, instead being mostly tired. We were not the first to stumble over such tough questions. We won't be the last. Did we figure out just what a Christian should do or feel or think? Possibly, but more likely not.

It's not easy. Taking another's life is the most serious of debate topics. I am against it on its deepest level. I'm sure of that. But if my children's lives depended on it, I would ....

Jesus had a wonderful opportunity, as he discussed the end times, to comment (just as he had great opportunities to talk about abortion and homosexuality and all those things that seem to cause such fusses today in and across Christianity today) about wars.

He said this: 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."

He said that, but what didn't he say? He didn't say, "But don't you participate in them." He didn't say, "But pray about them all or love those ones who participate or defend yourself when attacked or don't you dare strike first or any of those things." He didn't say, "Whack those who would whack you first." Didn't say it. As far as I can understand, didn't think it. So how do we? Really. How do we?

I tend to be a bit of a pacifist, and I don't like the thought of bombs killing kids and I'm particularly against any of the above simply because someone is of a different religion. How religion can be a tool of destruction or a reason for killing astounds me. But it is, and it has always been.

I don't have an answer when folks talk about saving ones loved ones by fighting or saving ones nation by fighting back or any of the examples all of us can give. I don't. I just don't. Anyone who says it's a simply thought, I wonder about.

I'll just throw this out, though. We extrapolate that God is against abortion because all life is sacred and that's a theme that runs through the Bible in general and the New Testament in particular. But we don't extrapolate that same message when it comes to the death penalty. We extrapolate that murder is wrong because it says that in the ten commandments, but we don't extrapolate that murder is wrong when it comes to war. At that point we say that is killing, not murder and start talking Hebrew syntax and such. I'm not absolutely certain the one killed cares that much about the differerence between murder and killing, though we say God does. Does He now?

The thing about all this that bothers me most is what it all says is that not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder, but it seems that war is as well. That seems to be wrong on so many levels. If we can decide what is right and wrong on our own, what need we have the law of Moses? What need we have Jesus' teachings? What need we have morality and ethics? We simply decide what is right and wrong on our own and Bible be darned.

I remember in Course of Study, that which passed for mini-seminary for me, how astounded I was when so many held different beliefs about such seemingly fundamental things as virgin birth, bodily resurrection, rapture and Biblical things such as that and current topics like war, abortion, homosexuality. What I had figured was clear going in was not coming out. It's not a matter of intellect either. Reasonable, intelligent persons disagreed with MY position. I was astounded.

Maybe in the end that's what Jesus wanted. He wanted us to come not to agreement mentally but to some sort of compromise of the heart where the difficult issues can be talked about and some sort of understanding worked out.

And if that didn't work, he knew we would just fight about them anyway.