While the battle
in Iraq rages on, the faithful on the homefront
decide what is religiously right and what
is realistic.
By LAURA JOHNSTON and
LARUE DIEHL
As the third anniversary
of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq approaches,
Americans have grown increasingly divided
over President George W. Bush’s decision
that removing Saddam Hussein was a legitimate
response to the terrorist attacks of Sept.
11, 2001.
More than half of the
respondents to a recent Gallup poll said
the war was a “mistake,” a level of dissent
that threatens to undermine the administration’s
broader goal of bringing stability and democracy
to the Middle East. The poll numbers also
suggest that support among the president’s
base of Christian Americans has also eroded.
John
Schuder, a prominent figure in the Columbia
peace movement, protests outside the
Columbia Post Office. Schuder has been
going to the weekly protest for the
past 22 years. (BEN FREDMAN / Missourian)
Carl
Nichols, a member of Lighthouse Community
Church in Columbia, flips through his
Bible, covered in fabric with an American
flag pattern, during services at University
Baptist Church. Nichols says he supports
the invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces.
(TARA HEIN / Missourian)
“At the time of
the invasion, and leading up to it, probably
most Christians mirrored the attitudes of
most of their fellow U.S. citizens and supported
the war,” said Tobias Winright, assistant
professor of theological studies at Saint
Louis University and a Catholic theologian
who has written articles for “The Encyclopedia
of Religion & War.” “Now, three years
later, as the general support of the war
has declined, I suspect that in the pew,
Christian support likewise has decreased,”
he said.
Christians were split
in the support of the war. As the attack
on Baghdad grew imminent, the late Pope
John Paul II and the U.S. Council of Catholic
Bishops, along with other mainline Protestant
groups such as American bishops of the United
Methodist Church, warned President Bush
that an invasion would not be morally justified.
Yet others who say their
lives are anchored in the teachings of Christ
continue to stand by the president, who
has maintained that the war is a global
confrontation between good and evil.
Lee Walker of Jefferson
City is among supporters of the Iraq war
who gather every Wednesday outside the Missouri
Capitol Building. Walker says his Christian
beliefs compel him to support the president.
“My belief in
God tells me to do what’s right and that
I’ll be judged for what I do,” he says.
“I am a citizen and am obligated to support
my country.”
Army Col. Jim Coy, a
Columbia resident and 25-year veteran who
served in the Persian Gulf War, echoes the
view that God and country are inseparable.
Coy, who has written a series of books about
military leadership, courage and faith,
says the war is necessary to keep terrorists
at bay, protect the American way of life
and defend Judeo-Christian values.
“There have always
been people who didn’t want to serve in
conflict because the Bible teaches about
loving our neighbor and loving the enemy,”
Coy says. “I don’t like the thought of war,
but there are battles that have to be fought.”
Traditionally the theological
perspective on the question of which battles
have to be fought is rooted in the theory
of just war. Winright says Just War Theory
is “the primary perspective on the ethics
or morality of war among Christian groups.”
Just War Theory is comprised
of three necessary considerations: the cause
of war (jus ad bellum); the conduct of war
(jus in bellum); and the consequences of
war (jus post bellum). The Vatican’s opposition
to the invasion stemmed from the conviction
that, as long as United Nations’ inspectors
were on the ground in Iraq, war could not
be justified as “a last resort,” a foundation
of jus ad bellum.
By comparison, many
theologians and religious experts point
to the U.S. attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan,
in the immediate wake of Sept. 11, 2001,
as morally justified.
“I support the
war in Afghanistan because it was a justified
invasion based on terrorism,’ says John
Wood, a professor emeritus at Baylor University
in Waco, Texas, and author of “Perspectives
of War in the Bible.” He says the invasion
of Iraq “flew in the face of the just war
tradition and was a mistake.”
But Wood also acknowledges
that, 1,600 years after St. Augustine began
contemplating the issues that would evolve
into Just War Theory, applying the Gospel
to the realities of the modern world can
lead to much confusion — especially now,
when the conduct and consequences of the
war are the primary concerns.
“There’s a fringe
of the far-right that sees everything in
black and white and that this is God’s way
of destroying our enemies,” Wood says. “I’m
not sure what I think at the moment. Part
of me says we’ve made a mistake and there’s
nothing to do but ‘cut and run’ as they
say.” Resisting
any rationale for war“But I tell
you, do not resist an evil person. If someone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn to
him the other also.” — Matthew
5:39 (New International Version)
For some Christians,
no credible interpretation of Christ’s teachings
can lead to a justification for war. In
the Sermon on the Mount, recounted in the
New Testament by the Gospel of St. Matthew,
Jesus urged his followers to “love thy neighbor.”
“Blessed are the
peacemakers,” he said, “for they shall be
called children of God.”
David Finke, a Columbia
Quaker, said his opposition to war grows
out of an “awareness of the work of God
in the world.”
“It is very hard
to read the fifth and sixth chapters of
Matthew and come out defending militarism,”
Finke says.
Quaker John Schuder
of Columbia has attended a peace vigil outside
the U.S. Post Office in Columbia every week
for 22 years. “Jesus provides the pacifist
position,” he says.
The Quakers were founded
by George Fox as a response to the cultural
and religious unrest of 17th century England.
Quakers — or, as they are officially known,
the Religious Society of Friends — reject
all wars. In 1952, five years after the
Society of Friends was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for its humanitarian work during
World War II, they issued a statement reaffirming
their pacifism, as dictated by their “peace
testimony.” This testimony precludes allowing
for any legitimization of war or a belief
in Just War Theory.
It states: “The Religious
Society of Friends, from its origin in the
17th century to the present time, has continuously
held that war and Christianity are incompatible;
and therefore, they (Quakers) cannot, under
any circumstances, support or prepare for
war.”
Yet, Quakers don’t equate
pacifism with passivity in times of war.
Quaker conscientious objectors formed ambulance
units that operated on the front lines during
World War II, and an awareness of the suffering
caused by war, Finke says, means that “we
reach for our checkbook as readily as we
reach for a picket sign.”
Quakers and other so-called
“peace churches” take their beliefs from
early Church teachings, Scripture and the
“inner light” Christ brings to their lives.
Likewise, the Catholic
Worker Movement, founded by Dorothy Day
and Peter Maurin in 1933, emphasizes the
principle of non-violence as a core Christian
value. Lana Jacobs of Columbia’s Catholic
Workers community — one of about 185 around
the country — says the organization shies
away from political arguments, but rather
is committed to “Gospel ideas and Gospel
living.”
Her husband, Steve Jacobs,
who spent 12 months in jail following his
arrest during a non-violent protest in 2000,
says that Christ’s example precludes any
form of violence, even in self-defense.
He says Jesus and his followers could have
retaliated against the Roman guards in the
Garden of Gethsemane, but didn’t. Christian
supporters of the war are ignoring “the
specific admonitions of Jesus” to turn the
other cheek.
“He was consistent
all the way through,” Jacobs says, “even
to the point of forgiving his enemies as
he hung on the Cross.”
Like most people, religious
congregations reflect a variety of views
on the war. Many influential Catholics in
the United States, including Michael Novak
of the American Enterprise Institute and
Richard Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor
who is now a Catholic priest, accused the
Vatican of abandoning Just War Theory.
The Rev. Jim Bryan,
senior pastor at Missouri United Methodist
Church, says Methodists aren’t united for
or against the Iraq war. But he is unequivocal
in his belief that the war has been a “disastrous
thing.”
“It’s as foreign
to real life and it’s as foreign to Christian
values as anything I can think of,” Bryan
says. “That’s not a statement against the
United States, that’s a statement against
warfare. You’re talking about killing people.
You’re talking about creating hatred that
lasts for generations.”
Winright says that Christ’s
teachings, while universally applicable
and worthy of emulation, couldn’t predict
a modern world not guided by similar concepts
of morality. Even Just War Theory supports
defending the innocent and protecting them
from harm, using force if necessary, he
says.
“Although he told
his followers to love their neighbors and
their enemies,” Winright says, “he apparently
never instructed us what to do when an innocent
neighbor is being unjustly attacked by the
enemy neighbor.” Protecting
what religions preserve“From everyone
who has been given much, much will be demanded;
and from the one who has been entrusted
with much, much more will be asked.”
— Luke 12:48.
Christian supporters
of the war, while they might not share a
single compelling principle or theory, are
just as firm in their belief that Christ
would support the Iraq invasion. Some, like
Coy and Walker, say Christian faith demands
they consider the right of Iraqis to be
free from tyranny. Others have come to accept
America’s role as global defender of representative
government, which in their view, is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of Judeo-Christian values.
Carl Nichols, a member
of Lighthouse Community Church, a Baptist
congregation in Columbia, said that if the
U.S. had ignored the threat Saddam Hussein
posed to the world, the consequences would
have been great. Nichols says even though
no weapons of mass destruction were found
in Iraq, it did not change his opinion that
the invasion was justified.
“Maybe God was
using the United States to help correct
the situation,” he says.
Lighthouse Pastor Randy
Germann says Christians should not automatically
support the president’s decision to go to
war. Germann was brought up as a Mennonite,
a “peace church” that abhors violence of
any kind. But Germann says he grew tired
of struggling with always turning the other
cheek and “expecting God to fight all our
battles for us.”
“I think it’s
a good thing to be relieving these people
and freeing them,” he said.
Germann says he believes
part of the blame for the war lies with
the failure of Americans to pray as fervently
as the situation called for.
“And I don’t want
to be a Christian getting political,” he
says, “but this is one thing we’ve not done
enough of.”
Adam Sapp, who also
attends Lighthouse Community Church, said
the Bible speaks of calling leaders to eliminate
injustices, and that Hussein’s oppression
of his own people required the U.S. to intervene.
“Jesus instructed
us to love everybody else as we love ourselves,”
he says. “We were doing those people a grave
injustice by not going in and letting this
continue to happen to them.”
Patti Branson, a Lighthouse
member whose father served in the military,
said animosity toward the United States
triggered the terrorists’ attacks. That,
in turn, required the United States to mobilize
in order to protect its core values, which,
in her view, include Christianity.
“I was raised
to respect other people and turn the other
cheek,” she says, “until our faith and our
way of life and our religion was threatened.”
MORE:
• Fighting the Good Fight
• What
is a Just War?
• The
Soul of a Soldier
• Denominational
Statements on Iraq
• About
the Authors
A blog about faith, values and spirituality in the media, from CORP faculty, staff and friends.
ReligiousLife@MU A blog about religious life at the University of
Missouri-Columbia.
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