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God’s will for our congregation Various friends, relatives, and co-workers

Our nation, leaders and military The spread of the good news

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20).

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act" (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

How do we confront evil? That might sound like an easy question yet much debate centers around this question. Recently in an internet discussion group, in the context of war, one of the threads in the discussion was the evil the Allies, and the U.S. in particular, did in World War II by using atomic bombs on civilian populations. When such discussions occur, it seems that it is easier to beat up on the U.S. and ignore the evil that we were fighting. There is a hatred of our nation by some of our citizens though I don’t think that was the case in the above conversation. That being said, why is it that when we "do" something, that our past is brought up and we are told that we have done evil things, and that somehow those past actions should stop us from intervening in a current event? I would like to explore this.

Much of this discussion centers on war and pacifism. It is usually the pacifist who brings up the past. Now I think that pacifism can be a legitimate point of view but it does have limitations. We need to look at these. What the pacifist needs to address however is how to deal with evil? Much as we might not like to consider, evil exists and isn’t interested in discussions. The whole idea of war and pacifism, the theory of just war, and what the Bible says will come into our discussion.

What I would like to do is to look at pacifism and some of those who have been pacifists and how successfully they were. Then I would like to look at three "evils" that many bring up in such discussions that the U.S. has committed. Next I propose to look at current events and see what we can learn. Finally, we will look at some texts from scripture, and then offer some thoughts in summation.

Before we get to all that, there are some preliminary thoughts that I want us to keep in mind. The first is that of context. It seems to me that when such discussions ensue, many forget the context of the situation. Since we want to be Biblical, we certainly understand that context is very important. It is also important in the study of history and culture. We seem to forget that when we want to emphasize a particular point of view. What we will be looking at is in no way meant to justified actions of the past; rather it is to understand the context in which decisions were made. You can draw your own conclusions as to what you think about such actions.

Since this is written from a Christian perspective, we certainly want to keep that in view. One difficulty is that we live in two worlds. Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20, et. al.). But we are also citizens in this world, in our case that of the United States of America. One danger is to put our earthly citizenship over our heavenly citizenship. We are not a perfect people; we have made many mistakes in the past. Our Judeo-Christian ethic however has helped us to change past decisions, to make corrections, and to be more focused on what God wants.

Those who are opposed to Christianity - and let’s be honest, there are people who oppose the U.S. because of its religious belief - will attempt to rewrite or revise history. That makes it difficult for us to gain an understanding of what our country is all about. Again, our nation isn’t perfect; we have made mistakes and have to admit that. By the same token, we have also attempted to do good throughout the world. Again, context is very important in understanding this.

As Christians, we understand that there is evil in this world. One can see that not everyone sees it that way. In fact, some call evil good because, in their multicultural and politically correct view of things, all are equal or the same. There is no difference between us and them. When President Reagan called the old Soviet Union the evil empire and President Bush called three countries the axis of evil, they both were strongly criticized for using such language. The critics stated that this would not bring peace. They also brought up the usual criticisms of the U.S., attempting to equate our past actions as the same as those nations who opposed us. This confusion has entered into our Biblical discussions, like the one mentioned above.

Another aspect to our Biblical understanding is that of how to apply scripture. Should texts that we will look at be practiced by individuals and congregations only or should they be practiced nationally as well? The pacifist tends to apply it to the nation as well as the individual. Those on the other end apply it personally and congregationally, but do not see it as applying to the nation. A nation has a different function. In keeping with context, the New Testament was written in the context of a dictatorship. Paul did use his Roman citizenship to his advantage at times, yet at other times he was quiet about it. The Old Testament was written in the context of a monarchy with outside threats. That too must be kept in mind.

I know that I will not cover everything in this. In the end, I doubt that agreement will be found between the pacifist and those at the other end. I know that some of you will add to or disagree with some of the ideas and conclusions presented in this study. That being said, evil must be confronted. There are some ways of doing that that we will all agree on. After that however, there will be strong disagreement among Christians. There is evil and then there is evil. If we cannot define what is really evil, and agree what is evil, then we will draw conclusions that can be dangerous.

One final thought. Churches of Christ or the Restoration Movement were identified as peace churches during the first one hundred or so years of their formation in this country. That is a general statement. I think that while David Lipscomb opposed the Civil War (the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on your point of view), that doesn’t mean that all members were not involved in the war. During World War I, the common view among churches was that of pacifism. In fact, one of our colleges was shut down and a number of faculty and students were arrested by the government because of this (1). President Wilson had a problem with those who oppose his entrance into the War to end all Wars, believing that what he had said earlier, staying out of the war, and got him elected, was what was important.

During the 1930s, this pacifist view changed when preachers began to be more pro-government. World War II saw a complete change as many members of churches of Christ went to war. We will look more at this later.

Much of this discussion will center on war and peace. Sin has entered this world and as much as we would like to live in peace. war has been a part of humanity since the fall. Dennis Prager often says that the left does not oppose evil. It has often opposed those who opposed evil.

George B. Mearns

(1) For some background to this idea, see the story and movie, Sergeant York; a story of a Tennessee boy who became a Christian, was a pacifist, yet when to Europe and became a decorated soldier. There were other factors that Wilson wanted to accomplish that included the entrance into the war and some progressive ideas that he had in leading this country.