THEOLOGY REDSHIRTS: Oh, well, I’ve been thinking a lot about things I don’t write about here, because I don’t have anything coherent yet to say. And just-war theory vs pacifism is one of those things. (Yes, your reading recommendations very much welcomed.) Camassia hits close to one of my biggest problems with (certain strains of) Christian pacifism:

…I would put that more bluntly: why the hell would anyone in government go along with a narrative that says their main function is to serve a church that they don’t believe in? It sounds a lot like the Muslim concept of “dhimmitude,” only instead of just inconveniencing the infidels with taxes and other minor burdens, it expects the dhimmis to perform dangerous jobs like policing on behalf of the privileged group. …

If you look at it that way, there really isn’t a whole lot of daylight between Yoder’s position and the Lutheran one. The princes of Luther’s era also “used the tools” that they inherited to do what they thought was right–in their case, the tools being things like armies and judicial fiat. The only real difference seems to be that while Luther felt it was OK for Christians to wield the sword of the state in a just manner, Mennonites apparently feel it’s OK to hire other people to bear the sword according to their direction.

Because make no mistake about it: any time you pass a law, you are backing it up with the sword. Notice that in my first Yoder quote above, he mentions “the state’s judiciary and police machinery” in the same category as international wars. Near the end of the paper he oddly remarks that, “In a highly christianized culture it is an available alternative to have unarmed police and no capital punishment,” and I am totally confused as to whether he means “christianized” in a Constantinian sense or not. But either way, that is clearly not the society we live in now; so every law is backed up with violence.

more

There’s a reliance on people who must stand outside the peaceable community, in order to protect that community. There’s a weird acknowledgment that so many of our little kindnesses, and all of our conspicuous lack of martyrdom, depend on the guns in the hands of men who haven’t yet accepted the pacifist interpretation of the Gospel. And I maybe can see acknowledging that fact… but I’m not sure I can see accepting it. And I can’t see admiring the pacifists behind the walls more than the soldiers at the sentry towers.