Bible Studies

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When I was in college, one of my professors had a bumper sticker on her office door. It said, “When Jesus said to love your enemies, I’m pretty sure he meant don’t kill them.”

I, as a 20-year-old poli sci minor, thought she was merely an old fogey, a liberal past her time who couldn’t stomach the fact that the world is sometimes a violent place. The bumper sticker always bothered me – not because I thought it was wrong, but because I didn’t have a good response to it. (The thought that those two might be related didn’t cross my mind till just later.) Dr. Rogers, if you happen to read this, please stop laughing.

Now, six years later and after three years of seminary, I’m considering that perhaps her bumper sticker was right.

Before I go any further, let me clarify what I believe about several crucial issues. I believe that the Bible is the mistake-free word of God, written by human authors who were inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, resulting in a document that is completely reliable in matters of faith and doctrine. I believe that every word it says is binding on my life as a believer. If, then, I come to the conclusion that the Bible prohibits warfare, I have no choice but to oppose war with every method available to me.

The issue of killing comes up very early in the Bible, as early as the fourth chapter in it, where Cain kills his brother Abel, and is cursed by God for it. This demonstrates that God obviously finds killing pretty offensive, not merely because he said so, but because he made the person that is being killed. Psalm 139 reminds us that every human that exists was created by God, knitted together in the womb, and therefore precious to him. That is the philosophical foundation for God’s opposition to killing.

The earliest codified law against killing comes in Exodus 20, where the Ten Commandments prohibit murder. Now, this is one of the crucial distinctions that I must draw. There are two kinds of killing: murder and self-defense, a distinction that would absolutely have been understood by Jews of Moses' day, and a distinction which is further clarified just two chapters later in Exodus 22, which explains that a thief found breaking into your house may be killed without a second thought, and the killer will not be guilty of sin or bloodguilt. Killing in self-defense, while certainly not smiled on by God, is permissible according to the Law. One could hardly be considered a godly husband if he did not protect his wife and children from an armed burglar in his house, for instance. However, any kind of killing which is not self-defense is murder, a violation of God’s law and a curse-worthy act against one of God’s beloved creations.

“But Jim,” someone might say, “what about all the passages in the Bible where God commands his people to enter the Promised Land by force and violence?” I would point out that the central issue is not war, but God's promise. God made a promise to his people that he would give them a certain piece of land, what we now know as Israel (and actually a larger area, but that’s a different controversy). When his people reached this land, they found heathens living in it. Now, God had two choices at this point. He could have his people go in and drive out these heathens who weren’t supposed to be there to begin with…or he could break his promise. Is it a big surprise that he chose to keep his word? Note that the focus, as I said, is on God and his promise, not on his people and their security. God was not commanding them to go to war so that they could be safe from terrorists or hostile enemies; his sole focus was on his own faithfulness to the promise he had made them. It is Biblically illiterate to suggest that this part of the Old Testament justifies an aggressive American military policy in the 21st century.

King David, lauded as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13), was no stranger to violence, launching many military campaigns in the name of the Lord. However, after years of doing this, he wanted to build a temple to celebrate the way God had watched over and protected him. However, God forbade him to build a temple! God’s reasoning? “You are a warrior, and you have shed blood” (see 2 Chronicles 28:3). David, even despite his status as a man of God, was prohibited from building God a temple because he was also a man of war.

Then, of course, we come to Jesus. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” The Old Testament does say, “Love your neighbor,” but along the way, some religious leaders decided that loving your enemies was just too hard. Those leaders added a new rule that said it was okay not to love your enemies, and that rule is what Jesus is arguing against. Jesus says that a Christian’s heart should be filled with love, pure and unconditional love, all the time and toward all people. This brought me to my conclusion, which I will place in a new paragraph for the sake of emphasis.

It is never, never, never okay for a Christian to look at another human and see an enemy or an opponent. The only permissible course of action for a Christian is to see every human being as a person, God’s creation, in desperate need of Christ’s love and mine as well. War is utterly, impossibly opposite to what Christ taught us about the way we are to see our fellow humans. There is simply no way to reconcile war with Christian faith.

I realize that this thought might offend some people, especially those who have served, and I mean you no disrespect because I’m sure you meant well when you enlisted. I can think of several of you off the top of my head who will probably read this essay and I know that every last one of you is a Godly man or woman who I am proud to call a friend. I’m not looking to condemn you for what you have done or the choices you made. I will say this, though. Jesus’ teaching on love is very difficult, even impossible, to uphold. But it’s fairly safe to say that being trained to kill other humans is a bad way to start trying to love them.

Shall I go on? 1 Peter 3:10-11, quoting Psalm 34, “Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” James 3:18, “The seed whose fruit is righteousness is planted in peace by those who make peace.” Hebrews 13:20 refers to God as “The God of peace.” That’s pretty strong language.

So what am I saying, then? That we should stop hunting down the terrorists who are trying to kill us? That we should refrain from going to war, even to prevent great evil? Well...yes. From cover to cover, the entire teaching of the Bible gives me no other choice. God abhors murder, despises when people kill his creations, disapproves of making war, and commands us to love unconditionally instead. What a challenge! But the Bible says it, as clearly as it says anything, and I (and anyone else who wants to claim the name of Christ) must put aside my own thoughts, reason, and desires, and simply obey.

You might say, “But if we don’t kill the terrorists/Communists/Nazis, they’ll kill us!” I would say three things to that.

First, God has said that it is not okay to make war. It is never the right thing to do. So even if it seems like we have to wage a certain war in order to oppose people who are evil, I would remind you that we can never, never do the right thing by doing the wrong thing. If war is sinful, then it is permanently off the table as a possible solution, and God will not require nor command it of us.

Second, let’s think pragmatically. How many hundreds of billions of dollars per year does the military vacuum up to pay salaries, build weapons and bombs, and develop new technology which can kill better? How much better would the quality of life in the United States be if the military were dismantled and all that money was paying for food and education and unemployment benefits and roads? How much good could we do in Iraq and Afghanistan if we shut down the military and sent those people the equivalent amount in financial aid instead? How much good could we have done if we had taken the six hundred BILLION dollars that the war in Iraq has cost us (as of September 2009) and used it to buy food and livestock, to help start businesses, and to provide education and training? Wouldn’t we have a whole lot more friends there than we currently have?

Third, have we really become so spiritually immature that we can’t stomach the idea of dying for our beliefs? If I choose to love instead of make war, and I lose my life for it, have I really lost anything? On the other hand, if I claim to believe in love, but I make war whenever I feel like it’s “necessary,” then I must not believe in love! “We have to kill them so they don’t kill us,” some say. Really? You would rather turn your back on God, ignore him and take matters into your own hands, than do what he tells you to do and trust that he is in control? Shame on you, and I call on you to repent.

Let us also think of the people who are killed by our wars – more often than not these people are not Christian, meaning that our soldiers are sending them to hell, usually without ever having a chance to hear the gospel! Must I really believe that my physical well-being demands that I help send thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis to hell? Truly that is not a price worth paying. Some may try to justify it by saying, “They deserve it; they’re members of the Taliban / Ba’ath party / whatever,” but I would remind those people not to be elitist – every single one of us deserves hell for the things we’ve done, and that by no means makes it okay for us to hasten another person’s arrival there.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love motivated God to create people and give us the opportunity to know his own great love. Love moved him to care for, protect, and bless his people over thousands of years. And finally, “God showed his love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Love compelled God, in spite of all our sins, errors, misjudgments, mistakes, flaws, and rebellion, to come down here merely for the purpose of allowing us to have a relationship with him. Christ could have come down from the cross and saved himself at any time, but love held him there, and in refusing to save himself, he saved all who would repent and follow him.

Love is a beautiful thing, and neither you nor I nor anyone on earth can never arrive at love by making war. War, violence, and being trained to see others as enemies are the direct opposites of God’s plan for his creation, which is peace and unconditional love. The nationalism, political bickering, and “our side is better than your side” mentality that come along with war are disgusting and offensive to God. They are not necessary evils. They are simply evil.

So I would call on you who will read this, mostly but not exclusively Americans, to rid yourself of what you have been taught to believe about war and its position in the world. I challenge you to conceive of a world powered by love instead of violence, selflessness instead of me-first, reaching out to those who hate you rather than looking to murder them. That’s the world that Christ talked about, and it could really exist if all the people who call themselves Christians would do what Christ said to do. If you really believe that love can conquer all things, then start proving it.

As for me, I’m through with war. In the past I have been guilty of the kind of nationalistic elitism and kill-them-first attitude that I spoke of earlier. I have ignored the Bible in favor of what I wanted to believe, and before I knew better, I supported the decision to send us to Iraq. The blood of the slain soldiers, terrorists, and innocent civilians is partly on my head. But the great beauty of life, and of God’s power working in me, is that he is constantly changing me for the better. This is one such change. I would urge you to consider what I’ve said and act accordingly.

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