As we enter a new year, a year that is certain to be contentious as the American political scene begins to gear up, I would like to suggest that perhaps the best thing the Church can do is to get back to the root of the Gospel call of radical discipleship.
I have argued that war begets war and violence begets violence. This is my paraphrase of Jesus’, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matt 26:52).
NB: I am going to touch on a nerve in this post and the ones to follow. I ask only that you consider what I have to say. My concern is for the Church to reflect the attitudes and ethics of Jesus. I am not saying that all governments are innately corrupt. Nor am I claiming that they never do what is right. I am saying that they often, perhaps even most often, act in accord with their own interests in a manner that defies the ethics of the kingdom of God. This, of course, should not be surprising. After all, as I have said, nations cannot adopt a biblical ethic and survive. World leaders cannot say to another world leader, “Go ahead and slap me on the right cheek. I’ll love you anyways.” This alone should be enough to alert us that there is a fundamental conflict between the way of Christ and the ways of nations.
NBB: I must confess that I have a measure of anxiety in writing this and the following posts. What if they won’t believe me? What if I am wrong? Such fears are predicated on my conviction that much of the church has strayed too far from the Gospel of Christ. What do I mean? I ask that you read this post and the ones to follow prayerfully as I make my convictions known.
Nations cannot survive by practicing Jesus’ ethic of self-denying love for one’s enemies.
A few years ago I was offered a free e-book titled, The Business of War: Theological and Ethical Reflections on the Military Industrial Complex. Now this type of book is not usually my cup of tea. But for some reason I not only accepted the offer and downloaded the book, I even read it.
And I am glad that I did. The level of scholarship was rich. Each of the various chapters was written by an expert in a given field. What I found most intriguing was how the general thesis of the book confirmed my convictions regarding the NT expose of empire.
Several of the essays in the book provided detailed accounts of how modern warfare aims to benefit those in power. Wars, in fact, not only advantage those in power but they come at the expense of the poor and the marginalized.
This is precisely what I believe Jesus and His proclamation of the kingdom was, in part, asserting.
The Cross as power
As I have said, the cross is the symbol of power both in the kingdoms of the world and in the kingdom of God. Empires use the violence of crosses (and the machinery of war) as a display of their power and as a means of gaining or maintaining authority over their subjects. In the kingdom of God, however, Jesus uses the Cross to display His power through love by suffering so that the oppressed might be free.
What we find in the book of Revelation is that empires not only utilize war and violence as a means of obtaining or maintaining power but they employ propaganda as a means of justifying war.
NB: the determinetruth podcast is currently providing an in-depth look at the book of Revelation. We are currently examining the nature of the Beast (empire) and John’s warning to the people of God to come out of Babylon.
It is because of these two factors, namely,
1) empires use war and violence as a means of demonstrating their power; whereas Jesus exhibits His power through love; and
2) empires defend their use of power by employing propaganda
that I am so deeply grieved by the American churches’ embrace of war and violence.
The US war machine
Here is where it becomes scary. The US spends vastly more money on the military (billions more) than it does on diplomacy. Why? Perhaps it is because war is business and diplomacy is not good for said businesses.
A few weeks before the war broke out in Ukraine I stated in a post, “First, I want to expose the fact that many Americans are being persuaded to support military aggression in Ukraine, especially if Russia invades, by a media that is often influenced by big money corporations who profit from war and even the threat of aggression.”
That’s right: corporations profit from war. And guess what: these corporations hire hundreds of lobbyists. War lobbyists in Washington DC far outnumber and outspend peace lobbyists.
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at the University of Columbia, recently wrote an article titled, “US Foreign Policy is a Scam Built on Corruption.” Sachs contends that since the year 2000, the US has spent $5 trillion on wars—or $40,000 per US household. This figure, he notes, does not include the $2 trillion that will need to be spent in the coming years on care for the veterans of these wars.
Who then has benefitted from these expenditures?
Well, it is not the veterans!
We are led to believe that the American people benefit. We are supposedly safer. Sachs rejects this explanation. He contends that these wars have not made the American people safer. The US war machine has only created more enemies.
The question becomes: “What will happen when the US is not the sole military power? What will those nations do in response to the US wars?” What happens when the bully is not the only bully?
We are also led to believe that the oppressed people in the foreign countries where we fought these wars have benefitted. This, however, does not withstand scrutiny either. The people of Ukraine are not safer. Many tens of thousands of their young men are dead. Might not Ukraine and the people of Ukraine be safer with a negotiated peace? Sachs contends, “Ukraine was bludgeoned on the battlefield by Russia in 2023 after the US secretly scuttled a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2022.”
Neither can we say that the people of Afghanistan are safer.
In fact, Sachs notes, “In the past 20 years, every major US foreign policy objective has failed. The Taliban returned to power after 20 years of US occupation of Afghanistan. Post-Saddam Iraq became dependent on Iran. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad stayed in power despite a CIA effort to overthrow him. Libya fell into a protracted civil war after a US-led NATO mission overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.”
The business of war and Gaza
When we look at the war on Gaza we find the propaganda machinery of war in action.
- “Israel has a right to defend herself”
- “Hamas must be destroyed for Israelis to live in peace”
- “God gave the land to the Jewish people”
- “The Palestinians have rejected multiple offers for peace”
There is a sense in which these arguments have merit. After all, propaganda always begins with the truth. That is what makes it so powerful.
The question becomes whether or not this war on Gaza is simply a just act of self-defense as we are led to believe. Or, if it is another example of the machinery of war. Of course, there will always be a mixture of both.
What I will contend in the next post is that the war on Gaza has extended well beyond an effort at self-defense. Too many innocent women and children are dead to assert that this war is justified as an act of self-defense.
to be continued . . .
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