If you've read my blog with any consistency over the last couple of months, you have picked up on the fact that I've spent quite a bit of time with folks in the military - mostly due to Ann's boyfriend, Berry. It's been great to get to know these people, and I've been fascinated with their camaraderie as well as what motivates them to do their jobs. In asking one gentleman why he joined the Navy, he replied, "Because I want to kill the bad guys." In multiple conversations with Berry, we've talked about good and evil. Something he has said is that "evil is a force that will not stop itself. For it to stop, it must BE stopped." I've spent a lot of time pondering this, and my respect for those men who have stepped up to fight evil in this way has grown.
So this morning, as I read Brennan Manning's The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, I was kind of taken aback by the following:
"The Christian response to evil - to aggression - is resistance, of course, but nonviolent resistance, the resistance of love, prayer and accepted suffering. When Christians do anything else, they have parted company with Jesus... If God so loved the world as to forgive all men and women for the murder of His Son, and to make out of that murder the cause of His murderer's redemption, how can people fail to forgive each other their mutual crimes? What man can serve as the executioner of his brother when God refused to execute those guilty of the death of His Son? After that acquittal, there is no crime on earth, no form of aggression, that can justify a person deliberately taking the life of another."
Now, Berry is not the authority on Christians in the military; nor is Brennan Manning. Both of these men formed their convictions from truths in the Bible, and came up with opposing conclusions. I have many thoughts about this, but I wondered what you all think. Is it parting company with Jesus to fight? Is it parting company with Jesus to pacify? Is there a third alternative?
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4 comments:
This is a tough one. God commanded many of his people, especially in the Old Testament, to fight other people and even to annihilate, at times. However, the excerpt you quoted makes a good point that taking another person's life as a means to justice doesn't make sense, since we were forgiven by God. I think there is a difference between killing out of our own anger or reasoning and killing because that's what God wanted us to do. After all, He is the ultimate authority in that area, and we are not.
Some Scripture:
Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set "Brother against brother, etc..."
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Our God is a consuming fire.
Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love.
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sin is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
Do not revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, "It is mine to revenge, I will repay." On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink."
And a final, non-Scriptural thought:
There is a difference, which must be drawn, between the proper response of an individual, respecting his person, and the response of an office, respecting those entrusted to his care by God.
I have never been in the military, but known many military people. It is relevant, I think, that people way above Berry decide what battles to fight. Berry trusts those people and stands for his buddies.
I will point out that there is a boundary between stopping evil, and punishing evil. If the evil is a 100,000 man army, it may not look much different. If someone attacks you or a neighbor, you can see the difference between stopping them and punishing them.
PS. Right or wrong, I will try to stop evil if given the chance.
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