Peace Isn't Always the Answer

Most people who would read this blog know that I am somewhat of a pacifist - not a strict pacifist, but I definitely am a peace lover. I even mentioned this past Sunday in church how American nationalism intertwining with the church really bothers me.

I read this excert from an LA Times article in THE WEEK and it made me think. It didn't totally change me, but it made me think. Please read and tell me what you think.

"If you want peace, prepare for war," the Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus counseled more than 1,600 years ago. This was not belligerence, said Bruce Bawer, but wisdom based on history and human nature. Our world has always included rogues and bullies who prey on the weak, and the more prepared and willing a nation is to defend itself, the less likely it is that it will have to go to war. But the fast growing "peace racket" denies this age-old truth, insisting that all war is unjust.
It goes on to say how they have no quarrel with murderous dictators like Kim Jong Il or Fidel Castro, but that the U.S. is the source of most or all of the world's oppression and poverty. College courses teach that if terrorists kill American civilians, it is wrong to respond with violence. Instead, we should try to reason with these fanatics. It's a message that could only appeal to pampered young Americans totally insulated from the realities that Vegetius spoke of centuries ago. As George Orwell once observed, "To abjure violence, it is necessary to have no experience of it."

For me, it's the line about "insulated pampered young Americans" that really got to me. I haven't been in a situation where I have been attacked. But I guess Martin Luther King was in that situation and he responded without violence.

What do you think?

This Doesn't Make Sense

Here's something I don't understand.

1. The Unites States through Lockheed Martin is selling 100 fighter jets to Turkey. This quote is from LA Times article about it - "The Turkish air force already has 215 F-16 fighter planes and plans to buy 100 of Lockheed Martin's new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well, in a deal estimated at $10.7 billion over the next 15 years."

2. I just read in The Week that two U.S. F-16 figher jets recently crossed into Turkish airspace while flying over Iraq. The Turks did not like this and their Prime Minister said, "We warned them not to repeat this. If this happens again, if this takes a different dimension, what we will do is obvious." He didn't say what "obvious" meant, but it is clearly a threat.

WHY WOULD WE SELL FIGHTER JETS TO A COUNTRY MAKING THREATS AGAINST US????????????

Contradictions

I have seen a couple people commenting on things like this and it got me thinking. It's part of my being an "acrobat."

Why am I this virtual pacifist when it comes to war but I love, I mean love in a way that stirs my heart, movies like Saving Private Ryan, 300, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings. I think that the HBO Miniseries called Band of Brothers is the single best piece of film-making on the face of the earth. That's just a story of the European front of WWII. I read all of Steve Ambrose's books on WWII. I'm unsure if my love for those movies is my sinful nature or if my views on war are just inconsistent. Just because I like something doesn't mean it's not sinful. We long for lots of sinful things. Maybe war is just a sinful thing that I resonate with, but my true heart's conviction is that it is wrong.

What do you think? Do you have any similar contradictions? I must be an acrobat to talk like this and act like that.

Middle Eastern Mickey

Click this link HERE and you will see why war hurts my heart so much. This is the image of the other side and what they are teaching their children. I think the translation is trustworthy but I can't say for sure. To be honest, it frightens me. Can we ever have a world with true peace? In the words of maybe the smartest man of all time, Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

P.S. You will have to watch a short commercial before the video on the link. The one I saw was about fishing with your kids which is strange when connected with the video.

"Support Our Troops"

I read this article today in the LA Times about how men and women who have been injured in Iraq have to go through layers and layers of bureaucracy to be able to receive disability aid and many are forced to make a decision between receiving a $8,000 check or receiving continuing aid from the VA. Many are making this decision while suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The above story is about a soldier being supported by some friends who are lawyers and businessmen, but most don't have that kind of support.

It seems to me that helping these people out is how we can "support our troops." I don't think that you have to advocate war to support our troops. Our own government and military sure supports more fighting, but I don't think this story helps me believe that they "support our troops." I would love to try and find out more how we can be activists for this issue. I would rather be positive in helping fight for aid for these injured soldiers than just denouncing the war effort or denouncing Bush or something like that. It just seems more productive.

CRAVE

Our College and Young Adults ministries do a small discussion group on Sunday mornings where they use this curriculum called The Wired Word. It is just a thing where this company emails a discussion based on something that happened in the news that week. It seems pretty cool for a group like this. Cheesy Website though - be warned.

This week was all about a group called CRAVE - Christians Reviving America's Values (I guess the "E" comes from the fifth letter of value). Crave's president, Don Swarthout, said, "We have apparently been fighting the war on terror with one hand tied behind our backs." They recommend increasing our military from 1.4 million to 2.1 million and allow it to fight without restrictions.

Swarthout said,

“Radical Islam has become a formidable force and it is time for us to fight to win. World War III is already here and we must come to that realization.”

I don't know about you, but this scares me. A lot.

The curriculum asked some good questions.
1. Christian views on war have tended to fall into three broad categories: pacifism (refusal to fight), a just war (qualified participation) and crusade (no holds barred participation, sometimes with the conviction that God is on our side). Which one these seems most biblical to you? Why?
2. When a Christian group calls for fewer restrictions on U.S. troops so that more killing can occur, how does that square with the Christian understanding of the sanctity of human life? (I think this question is pretty straw-man like, but I like where they are going.)
3. Does an issue become a "Christian" concern simply by having Christians care about it?

They suggested looking at Ex. 20:13, 2 Samuel 17:14, Psalm 46:9, Luke 14:31-32, Matthew 5:44, and Proverbs 12:20. They had more questions, but I'm probably bordering on copyright infringement.

Two things:
1. Scary that a "Christian" political activist group is lobbying for more freedom to shoot to kill.
2. This spurs a good discussion. I tend to lean somewhere between pacifism and just war on the continuum. I believe that there are just wars, but I just believe there are only a miniscule amount of wars that would qualify as "just." Hitler being overthrown in WWII was just. I tend to think of both Iraq wars as unjust. There are other equal if not greater causes in the world today that we are not fighting wars over. So why this? WMDs? Human rights? Oil? Halliburton? Freedom?

Thoughts?