Christian Response?

Resources

John Humphries, “Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice,” from In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond, edited by Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan Smith (New York: Metropolitan, 2005) - An article on activism against the war in Iraq

Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice - a Connecticut statewide interfaith gathering of religious leaders and people of faith committed to peace, specifically with regards to the War in Iraq.

http://www.forusa.org/articlesandresources/default.html - Various articles and statements for peace.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=about_us.community – Sojourners Statement of Faith.

Dan Peters, “Should Christians Have Guns? A Biblical Basis for the Second Amendment.” The Biblical Evangelist, Vol. XXIX No. 3 (May/August 1998) page 1, 14-16 - A stretch, at best, but this does raise some good points that can be extended to a defense for a strong national military.

Norman Jackson, “It’s God’s Mission” - A missiological base for a justice ministry

Martin Shupack, “Biblical Basis for Our Advocacy,” Washington Memo, Jan-Feb 1999 - Biblical basis for the Advocacy ministry of the Mennonite Church.

Micah 6:8 – The biblical basis for several organizations to be a prophetic voice.

Pete Ward, Liquid Church, Hendrikson Publishers, 2002 – Describes some of the changes in the church in our contemporary culture, including the increased involvement in social issues.

“A Big Pay-off for Two Game Theorists,” The Economist, October 15, 2005 – Summarizes the work of two Nobel Prize Winners in Economics and their work in game theory, which arose from analyzing the arms race.


Analysis

Humphries mentions our commitment to international accords and our place in a global community as the reason why we need to be outspoken on the issues of war and militarism. When the non-profit organization “Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice” was established, a statement summarized their views of individual and shared responsibilities for active resistance: “We believe it is our duty as both Americans and members of the international community to insist that our government immediately adhere to the international agreements binding us….” Individual responsibility is at the heart of the statement, as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal is quoted as stating, “Anyone with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do something is a potential criminal under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to prevent the commission of the crimes.”

We are called as Christians to peace. Sojourners claim that “Jesus' way of nonviolent transformation and peacemaking is not a Utopian dream but a necessary path” and that “our obedience to the state or any other institution must be conditioned, tempered, and sometimes rendered impossible because of our higher loyalty to the reign of God.”

The simple fact of the matter is that we live in a violent culture but this is not an excuse for militarism. As an illustration of this, we can look at some of the findings of recent Noble Prize winners Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann. Schelling of the University of Maryland in “The Strategy of Conflict” (1960) argues that a country’s best safeguard against nuclear war is to protect its weapons, not its people. Schelling “invests his hopes for peace not in arms reductions or fall-out shelters but in preserving the ability to retaliate, for example by putting missiles into submarines.” In other words, “it is better to show your enemy that you can hit back after a strike than to show him you can survive one.”

This is not a foreign argument to Christians as well, as some Christians are convinced that the Bible defends their right to bear arms. Dan Peters, D.Min, asserts that “Peace in a man's palace or home is the result of being armed, not disarmed. Law abiding citizens, trained in the proper use of firearms, can only enhance the peace of our communities. Armed homes are a deterrent to violent crime.”

Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice understands that we are living in a culture of violence and they attempt to offer an alternative to this culture. The see that “the authority and powers of the U.S. government can and has been usurped for illegitimate and immoral purposes, making it necessary for U.S. citizens, both individually and collectively, to take action to halt the war crimes being perpetrated in their names.” Sojourners believe in “the absolute necessity of spiritual formation and prayer to counter the assault of the world's dominant values on our hearts and minds and to center our lives and rest our souls in God.” We are called not to succumb to what culture accepts, but to speak out against it when necessary.