Well, I’ve committed to writing something about war and peace. And I’m deeply regretting that I did. I was inspired by liberal theologian Paul Rasor’s essay “Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Toward a Unitarian Universalist Theology of Prophetic Nonviolence.” It addresses many, although it turns out as I sit with it, not all, by a long shot, of my concerns about the issue of how or when or if ever war can be justified.
The horns of the delemma upon which I sit are:
Horn one: Violence is always evil, the product of grasping, hatred and cascading certainties. The only certainty following acts of violence is a flood of unintended consequences, nearly always more evil. And when it rises to war he flood becomes a tsunami.
Horn two: We have a right to self-defense. And, beyond that, I believe we have an obligation to protect family and neighbor.
I’m having a hard time squaring this circle. It seems both are axiomatic truth statements. And they’re in conflict.
So, what to do?
I want to say war is wrong. Our invasion of Iraq is an interesting example of how a state abuses traditional just war theories to unleash the dogs of war, the unintended consequences of which will be playing out for a very long time.
The invasion of Afghanistan raises more complicated questions. When that invasion was building up I didn’t join in protest against it. I didn’t publicly support it, either. Although my strongest concern at the time was that I thought the idiots in charge would blow it…
And into the mix, what are the similarities and the differences in stance for us as individuals and for us as communities? And which communities have the strongest claims?
Oh, I wish I’d decided to write a sermon about remodeling kitchens…
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