War: 'When Is It Right to Fight?'

IRAQ (September 16, 2005) - The sermon that follows was preached during a U.S. Navy chapel in Singapore in January 2003, about two months before the launch of the war - Operation Iraqi Freedom. Saville writes, "I am indebted to Rick Warren of Saddleback Church for the (sermon) title and I have used ideas gathered from a variety of sources, but the general thrust of the sermon is mine." It is offered in an effort to provide additional insight into the issues surrounding military conflict.

When Is It Right to Fight?

When you watch the news these days, it is plain that the possibilities, even probabilities for war seem increasingly likely.

The questions on so many minds - maybe yours - might be:

• When is it right to fight?
• When must I fight?
• Can a Christian serve in the military?
• Should a disciple of the Prince of Peace participate in war?

They are questions we must ask ourselves if we are to avoid forfeiting our humanity. Beavers don't wonder whether it is okay to build a dam on a river or not - they just do it. Sharks don't ponder the morality of eating smaller fish - they just do it. They have no capacity to reflect on the morality of their actions.

But as humans we are unique, in part, because we do have the capacity to ponder, reflect and choose what we consider a moral action . . . if we will indeed take the time to survey the moral landscape and wrestle with the information and questions.

So that you know, my intent is NOT to defy our military/political authority, but rather to help those who are under that authority have a clearer personal understanding of why it can indeed be moral (even a moral requirement) to fight and kill - and when it is not.

Such issues can be troubling for Christians who worship the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6: And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace . . . NIV)

Consider the peaceful intention of the following scriptures:

• Matthew 5:43-45: You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (NIV)
• Matthew 5:9: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. (NIV)
• Deuteronomy 5:17: You shall not murder. (NIV)
• Matthew 26:52: Put your sword back in its place, Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. (NIV)

But the scriptures also say:

• Ecclesiastes 3:8: A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. (NIV)
• Proverbs 20:18: Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance. (NIV)
• Proverbs 24:6: For waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers. (NIV)

If Christian military people understand the moral framework, we can do our military duty with a clearer conscience and with full vigor because we understand the issues for ourselves and own the principles in our own minds.

On the other hand, we may decide we cannot in good conscience participate in armed conflict at all, at which point it is time to declare yourself a conscientious objector and take off your uniform.

I will not try to tell you whether the potential conflict ahead in Iraq meets the criteria for "Just War" that I am about to describe or not. I encourage you to do your own thinking and praying.

It is true that those who have committed their lives to Jesus Christ are citizens of heaven, but you and I don't yet live there. So we have to face the issues.

By considering the issues surrounding war, we are not to act as a lawyer looking for a loophole to do what we want to do because we don't like a particular country; instead, we are to discern what obligation we have to do what we should feel is repugnant - that is, the taking of human life - because an even greater good can be served.

As an illustration: a Marine CO (commanding officer) says to a new chaplain in his unit what the CO thinks the chaplain's job is: "Chaps, my job is to hurt people and break their toys. Your job is to make sure I don't start to like it."

So, the question: "May a Christian serve in the military?"

Scripture says:

• A Roman Centurion had a faith greater than any Jesus had found in Israel (Luke 7:9)
• Cornelius, the Roman Centurion, was chosen by God as the first Gentile convert to Christianity (Acts 10:44)
• John the Baptist told the soldiers to be content with their wages, not to find another way of earning their wages (Luke 3:14)

In no case was the person reprimanded for being in military service.

I'm a believer in the necessity for leaders to paint the big picture so that followers know not only what direction we're headed in, but also why we're going there. So, since chaplains are supposed to be leaders regarding morality, here is my outline – six primary principles that can help inform us about the "rightness" of a particular war.

First: Right Authority - Public and Competent

The war must be declared by a competent authority.

This is perhaps the most fundamental principle. A competent authority usually means a government. I cannot declare war based upon a personal grievance. A large oil company cannot declare war because its assets are threatened. According to the U.S. Constitution, only Congress can declare war.

In previous years, when the United States has engaged in de facto wars that have not been formally declared by Congress, some observers have questioned whether the President of the United States exercises competent authority, or whether competent authority comes only from Congress, given our national commitment to democratic process.

There are many who feel that leaders of nations must go to the U.N. and make the case there. They feel that the question of competent authority can be even more firmly established one way or the other by seeing what the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council say. That is as public as you can get.

On the other hand, most terrorist groups are private, even when they receive help from governments. They lack competent authority.

When God ordained government, he did not intend that it should be impotent. Romans 13:4 states: For he (a government ruler) is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. (NIV)

Second: Just Cause

There must be a reason for the conflict that meets ethical standards, a cause that affirms universal human values.

Three examples could include protecting innocent life (e.g. protecting Jews during the Holocaust), preserving conditions for a decent human existence, and securing basic human rights (e.g. rights of women in Afghanistan).

National self-defense is a just cause; retribution and revenge are not considered just causes. Some say a pre-emptive, offensive strike is a form of defense. As an example: Israelis bombed Baghdad in 1981 so as not to be a target for nuclear weapons. What if the allies had confronted Hitler in 1936 when he first began to clearly violate treaties and occupied the Rhineland? Perhaps tens of millions of lives would not have been lost in WWII, if the Allies had enforced treaty compliance then, instead of appeasing a murderous dictator.

War should not be waged unless the evils that are fought are grave enough to justify killing. Notice the word: killing, not murder. Murder is deliberately taking innocent or defenseless human life. This is categorically forbidden, even in wartime.

Third: Right Intention

The purpose of the war is to secure an end to the injustice, a solution to the cause.

This means not only must there be just cause to take up arms, this just cause must be the reason for taking up arms. In other words, you don't trump up phony reasons to start a war because you have some other self-serving motive like pumping up the economy, keeping gas prices low, or looking for a boost in the polls. Right intent can be more difficult than it seems. On what basis can we say we'll go into Kuwait and Bosnia to defend them, but not Rwanda or Cambodia or Sudan?

Have there been unannounced motives/biases at work in those decisions? Certainly the limitation of American resources to right every wrong is a consideration, but you'll have to work out your own conclusions.

Fourth: Probability of Success

This standard counsels against the use of armed force in hopeless situations when there is very little chance that one's aims will be accomplished.

If nothing can be gained, if no benefits will result, then war should be avoided. There is no use in expending human life when there is not a reasonable expectation of success.

Fifth: Last Resort

Use of force should be resorted to only after all other efforts have failed.

Theologian George Weigel offers this interpretation of this standard: "One can always imagine 'one more' nonmilitary tactic that would be tried, one more negotiating effort that could be launched, one more conference that could be called . . . in a sequence that is . . . infinite in duration. No, what the (just war) tradition means by 'last resort' is that reasonable people can reasonably conclude that all reasonable efforts at a nonmilitary solution have been tried, have failed, and in all probability will continue to fail."

Folks, war should not be waged unless a reasonable person would recognize that all the peaceful alternatives have been exhausted. There comes a point, though, when even a reasonable person recognizes that the opponent is not interested in peace.

Sixth: Proportionality

The force that is used should be in proportion to the "evil" that is to be remedied, and should contribute to peace.

How much force is appropriate? It is wrong to use more force than is necessary to achieve the stated aims of the conflict? You don't use a nuclear device to kill 20 bad guys in a village. "Response to aggression must not exceed the nature of the aggression."

Once a nation has decided to go to war, there are some moral limitations on what is and is not permissible in war. I call this "How to Fight the Right Way." There are three main principles.

1. The Principle of Discrimination

What this question is really about is, "Who and what are legitimate targets? An example of legitimate targets would include military bases, oil refineries, arms and aircraft factories, ports and ships, and combatants as defined by the Geneva convention - usually in uniform, although not always so. Not hospitals, museums, schools, universities, and places of worship. Not non-combatants: doctors, nurses, chaplains, children, and civilian women.

Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish legitimate targets from those that are out of bounds. How do you recognize a terrorist in a crowd? If a "civilian" woman (not wearing a uniform) carried a satchel charge and killed several soldiers yesterday, she was a combatant. Many soldiers in Vietnam found this out the hard way.

So, if you're in a village in Vietnam the day after such an event, how do you know the woman in front of you today is or is not also carrying an explosive? Is a female banker working in an office who knowingly conducts transactions to fund terrorists a combatant? Do you arrest her? Assassinate/kidnap her? Imprison her? Freeze the bank electronically? Bomb the bank? Do nothing?

The questions are not so simple in today's wars.

Then there is the concern about collateral damage. It is inevitable that wars cause collateral damage - a bomb misses a military base and hits a hospital instead. "Smart bombs" and missiles reduce the chance of hitting the wrong buildings, but they also create less tolerance for mistakes. Every effort must be made to avoid killing innocent bystanders.

2. The Principle of Proportionality

We've already addressed this in part, but again the question is, "How much force is appropriate?" It is wrong to use more force than is necessary to achieve the stated aims of the conflict.

A touching statement from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops: "It is of utmost importance, in assessing harms and the justice of accepting them, to think about the poor and the helpless, for they are usually the ones who have the least to gain and the most to lose when war's violence touches their lives."

3.The Principle of Responsibility

The question here is, "Who is accountable?" If misdeeds are committed, then those responsible must be held accountable. Examples: War crimes trials in Nuremburg following WWII; the lieutenant in Vietnam following the My Lai massacre; Slobadan Milosevic for the killing in Bosnia; two American pilots (as of late January 2003) at courts martial for dropping bombs that mistakenly killed four Canadian soldiers. Question: Did those pilots violate orders, even though they thought they were being shot at by the Taliban?

Conclusion

The principles of justified war would certainly cramp our style. God, however, is not interested in our style - what he demands of us is holiness. The fact that terrorists reject the principles does not justify us in violating them - not even to act against terrorism. By violating them, rather than ridding the world of terrorists we would merely make ourselves the biggest, strongest terrorists of all. Murder remains murder, even when the murdered man might justly have been executed.

Even when just war standards offer a green light to limited military action, they surround that green light with yellow lights and red lights, continuously cautioning against some practices and forbidding others.

In the spirit of those yellow lights and red lights, I would like to point out a quotation from Margaret Mead who wrote: "It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good." Folks, there is no such thing as a good war. There is no glory in it.

The principles of justified war do not make wartime moral questions easy. They don't say, "Here are the answers." They do say, "Here are the questions."

In the last few months (prior to January 2003), many well-known Christians have considered these questions with regard to a possible war with Iraq and said not only that is it permissible, but a moral obligation to use force to promote peace. Other, equally known and respected Christians do not believe the criteria have been met and that military force is certainly premature, if not wrong altogether.

This is a congregation of mostly military people. Whether with bullets or with email messages, we fight the wars and bear the brunt of them. Can anyone say with good conscience, "I just follow orders?" (It didn't work for the Nazis who followed orders to kill millions of Jews.) Or, "I'm just earning a paycheck . . . I don't really think about it." (We must not forfeit our humanity by just carrying on and collecting our pay without examining for ourselves the issues.)

We must not forfeit our spirituality by separating our work from our religion. Your relationship to Jesus Christ should take precedence over what is expedient for our careers and our individual material-well-being.

Where do you stand on the question, "Is it right to fight this fight?" It is up to you to ask the questions and consider current events and the scriptures. It is up to you to prayerfully formulate your own convictions and then live or be willing to die by them.

May God grant us all wisdom, humility, courage, and mercy. Amen.

P.S. - other thoughts: "The war is a war of ideas . . . You can't explode a bad idea with a bomb, but only with a better idea . . . In addition to military defense, we need moral defense." War is hell, after all. But sometimes it may be a grim necessity.

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