Evangelicals and the Shadow of War in Europe

https://cne.news/article/4780-as-war-looms-in-europe-some-christians-pursue-pacifism

Articles such as this are always going to grab my attention. I was disappointed to read the statement of Fernando Enns who apparently is unfamiliar with the argument that taking up arms in warfare is viewed by war-advocates as self-defense on a large scale, or even better they will argue that invading a country is an act of love - defending people from a murderous tyrant for example.

These arguments are easily dispensed with if one simply takes up the New Testament but they will require a rejection of the world's paradigms of power - often a problem for Evangelicals. Christians can only make these stands when divorced from the political system - and can only do so consistently when they work out the extent and implications of that political system which happen to range well beyond bare politics itself. For example I would argue the political system and the economic order are inseparable and in a capitalist order almost indistinguishable. We cannot talk about the sword and the coin in separate terms or categories. They go together.

The implications of this are (for many) too much to bear, as it leaves the Church on the marginalised fringe - as if they're pilgrims and strangers or something like it. It seems like I read something about that somewhere.

How does Enns think we're going to hold governments to account? Paul wrote Romans 13 when Nero was emperor. Trajan initiated the conquest of Dacia within a few years of the New Testament's completion. The Church certainly did not support this slaughter and bloodshed but there's no indication the Church attempted to hold Trajan to account either.

I'm repeatedly struck by theologians like Enns and for that matter many pro-state and pro-war thinkers in Confessional circles. Many have not thought very deeply about what the state is, what it does, how and why it exists. We can provide a theological answer from the New Testament but this is separate from how states function in their own eyes and to their own ends. The same is true in the realm of economics - again so closely tied to the state. You cannot really speak of the sword without the coin - and vice versa.

I appreciate when Neo-liberal economists read the New Testament and come to the inevitable conclusion that it does not teach a system of ethics that is compatible with capitalism. They're right. And yet we have myriad 'conservative' and 'Bible-believing' Christians who teach otherwise.

Likewise we have many Christians who embrace the other end of Liberalism and believe the state will somehow narrow its primary focus to questions of human rights and morality. It's absurd. These people need to go back and read the New Testament and when they're done read some history. Both are categorically opposed to their views and their optimism.

Neumann (I'm sorry to say) means well but has read his Bible poorly and without a proper grasp of redemptive-history. His analogies fail as a result - even his appeals to the New Testament. The soldiers John was speaking to are not analogous to modern members of the German Bundeswehr. They were connected to the Old Covenant order and Jewish rule. That epoch was reaching its end and Jesus taught something quite different. In no way did he ratify the Centurion's vocation - the example being anticipatory and a kind of judgment on the unbelieving Jews. In terms of Cornelius in Acts, tradition says he left that office and served as an officer of the Church.

It wasn't so easy to leave the legions. Enlistments were for twenty years and so Christian converts had to decide - become a deserter or stay in and hope that the remaining time was limited to roads and aqueducts. If called on to fight and kill, the expectation was to refuse and accept the punishment. Those who were already Christians that then joined the legions were rightly excommunicated. The same should be true today. Denominations with chaplain corps need to repent and dispense with them. They are illegitimate on many levels - but primarily because they affirm the role of Christians in the military. As far as the chaplains themselves, in order to function in that role they have to split their authority - answering to a hierarchy that operates alongside and outside the Church and to very different ends. They are stooges for the war machine - the worst kind of false shepherds imaginable.

Neumann reveals an attitude all too common among Evangelicals - you're a Christian on Sunday but on Monday morning you put on your hat or uniform and live by a different set of ethics and to different ends. The Sermon on the Mount condemns him and yet his theology (I'm guessing influenced by Dispensationalism?) has led him to believe it does not apply - it's theoretical or a mere ideal, or maybe something only meant to be taken seriously in the future. What other parts of the New Testament is he going to set aside?

He's right about logistical support and yet those people have just as much blood on their hands as the man pulling the trigger. Russia is only a threat because of NATO. I realize all too well that the part I played in NATO expansion back in the 1990's helped set the stage for today's crisis and confrontation with Russia. Neumann is completely wrong. I realized I was wrong to be a stormtrooper for the Empire and so I worked assiduously to extricate myself and finally succeeded. I look back at that period with shame and refer to it as a means to teach people and to warn then of the dangers of nationalist idolatry and the propaganda it employs - the kind that encourages young men to enlist. Lost at the time, I fell for it. I had been deceived by the Evangelical Christianity that I had turned away from. The crisis of it all drove me back to the Scriptures and to my knees, and I read the Bible with open eyes and an open heart. My conclusions stand in stark opposition to the likes of Neumann.

Switching to Sweden - early Pentecostalism has a Restorationist ethos and as such a serious reading of the New Testament will teach not only non-violence but disentanglement from the world. Unfortunately Pentecostalism like so many other movements succumbed to the world and was seduced by it and would over time abandoned most of these teachings. The same is true of Fundamentalists and other Restorationist groups. Swedish Pentecostal leader Lewi Pethrus is a case in point - he turned to politics and embraced the sword and coin. The result was he defended atrocity - America's genocidal wars in Indochina and I'm certain he was blind to Washington's manipulation of his own country - though he did not live long enough to witness some of the most egregious examples.

Grenholm who wants to study the loss of pacifist conviction and hopes for its restoration has his work cut out for him - the example of CS Lewis is just one of many. As much as we can appreciate Lewis on certain points, his errors are abundant and on this issue his testimony is poor indeed.

In addition it needs to be understood that pacifism and non-violence are not the same as non-resistance. Too many pacifists and adherents of non-violence are in fact political activists who use these methods as tactics, and yet their overall ethic is either inconsistent or myopic. Government is violence and so if they seek to capture the reins of the state, they need to understand that upon doing so they abandon their professed principles. Some states can certainly be more peaceful than others but even many neutral nations are not pacifist. And for nations like Switzerland they are a militarized society that relies heavily upon their geographic advantage - one that many nations do not have. Additionally in order to survive and flourish in the wider world they've had to offer services that others do not offer and as such they have become a haven for all manner of intrigue and criminality. The model is convenient but not moral.

These questions must be wrestled with for those who would pursue this path. What does the Bible say? What are the implications of its teaching? Is it authoritative and sufficient or not? Neumann has answered clearly - it's not. Those who seek to re-frame these questions in terms of the academy or some kind of societal niche of respectability are only deceiving themselves.