July 19, 2002

Is anti-terror fight 'just war'?

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

"Is the Christian tradition animated by a 'presumption against violence'? Is that presumption so strong that the only defensible use of the 'just war' criteria is in arguments rejecting all proposed military actions? Or might the just-war criteria sometimes push us toward deployments of force that our narrow self-interests would not support?"

The question is the ninth in a series of essays on the Sept. 11 attacks in Straight Answers to Moral Confusion in National Crisis by the Institute on Religion and Democracy. The series authored by Alan F.H. Wisdom focuses on the role of America's churches in response to the attacks.

Wisdom notes that Christian leaders in "oldline U.S. denominations have not seen a war they could approve since Korea in 1950," condemning in turn U.S. military engagements in Vietnam, Grenada, Central America, Panama, the Persian Gulf and Kosovo.

He adds "many of these same leaders also displayed their sympathies with Marxist guerilla movements in Central America and Southern Africa. So perhaps their pacifism is selective, opposing violence emanating from the U.S. and its allies but not violence carried out in the name of more oppressed peoples."

This "quasi-pacifism" view remains among the "peace churches" since the Sept. 11 attacks, such as the Quakers, Wisdom notes, but is also being followed by mainline churches.

Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, spoke for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, saying "We question those who call for rapid and massive retaliatory strikes, the mobilizing of military reserves and increased funds for war, and ask, are these the things that make for peace?"

Konrad Raiser, World Council of Churches general secretary, said "the answer to terrorism must be found in redressing the wrongs that breed violence between and within nations."

When the bombs started falling on Afghanistan, George Lemopoulos, WCC acting general secretary, demanded that the western allies "bring a prompt end to the present action, and that no other state will join them in it." Where are the cries for Osama bin Laden to stop bombing?

One of the few religious voices giving unreserved backing to the U.S.-led military effort is Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He stated plainly "I believe that at this point the response of the president and the Congress meets all the criteria for a just war."

Land adds, "This is a defensive war. We've been attacked, and our citizens have been slaughtered, and they will continue to die in the hundreds if not thousands unless we attack these terrorists and remove their safe havens and places of refuge."

And black Pentecostal Bishop T.D. Jakes preached on Sept. 16, "Away with this timid, passive, indifferent, lukewarm, mediocre Christian idea of what God is ... Let Osama bin Laden and whoever shall rise against this nation understand that we have not dropped to our knees because we are defeated, but we have dropped to our knees because we are armed and dangerous and ready to fight the good fight of faith."

All I can add to that is "Amen, brother Jakes, amen to that."