The excerpt below is taken from David Bercot’s book; The Kingdom That Turned The World Upside Down. The central theme of the book pertains to Christians being utterly different from this world. One of Bercot’s biggest criticisms is the relationship that the Church in America has with politics. I happen to agree with most of the points Bercot makes and I especially agree with his argument that Christians have not been given the right to fight in war. What do you think about this?
“Aside from religious persecution, Caesar’s laws and Christ’s laws probably most often conflict in the area of nonresistance. For example, an earthly government often tells a young man that he must be enrolled in the armed forces, take up arms, and kill others who are enemies of his country. However, our King has already commanded us to love our enemies, not to hate them. Whether they are Buddhists, Muslims, or atheists, we can hardly slaughter them and yet claim that we love them. So we cannot obey both Christ and Caesar.
If Christ’s laws do not allow us to kill unbelievers, how much more so do they prohibit us from killing our fellow Christians. Yet, in nearly every war fought by Americans or Europeans in the past 1700 years, there have been professing Christians on both sides. If a foreign government ordered an American to fight against and kill his fellow Americans, most Americans would refuse to do so. However, if an earthly government orders a Christian to fight against and kill his fellow Christians, most professing Christians will do so.
Our ultimate allegiance cannot belong to two different kings. When a Christian kills a fellow citizen of God’s kingdom simply because some earthly ruler has ordered him to, he’s acknowledging that his ultimate allegiance belongs to his earthly ruler. He will put his country’s welfare above the welfare of the kingdom of God and the brotherhood of Christ.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I remember reading something C.S. Lewis wrote regarding war, specifically, WWI, which he fought in: "If an American and a Russian were to simutenously shoot and kill each other, and both arrived at the entrance of Heaven, I think that they would probably shake hands and laugh." Interesting suggestion... Makes war seem almost casual, and from a man who has seen the face of it.
Personally, I think war is almost always unnecessary, and the lining up of armies is barbaric, but sometimes people do just need to be killed - and there is an obvious logical problem there: Someone has to kill them, and other people will probably get in the way.
In one way of thinking about it, I'm not sorry that Hitler died when the Russians stormed Berlin. Ending Hitler's influence on the world was perhaps the one agreed necessity of the war, but that one argueably "good" consequence came at the cost of immesurable, unspeakable evils - both direct, and bizarre. For example, the scores of women and young girls in Berlin who were systematically raped and executed that same day during the Russian invasion. The Russians went door to door: The men were executed in front of their wives and children, then the women were stripped, violently raped, and murdered. Its almost worse than Hell, for mere men did those things in the lawless and moral abandonment of war. Nationalism somehow defined those people as worthless. This is actually quite common too, across the whole history of war. Apparently, once men crucify their consciences and begin hunting other men, rape and murder doesn't seem so important. Life and peace doesn't seem so important. Is war worth its atrosities? I don't know.
I think Christians should call war what it is - horrific, hellacious, abominable. Should we fight? I think its about relevance. If someone came against my wife or son, I would kill them. That seems to be my personal business, and I think I'd get over it rather quickly. If I was forced into a battle in the name of nationalism, against other mere men who were in the same unfortunate position, should I pull the trigger? I don't think that I would. I'd rather just die than kill some poor guy who just wants to go home like I do. So in my oppinion, I would not go to war in the national sense.
If we are pilgrams, then what are we fighting for?
Post a Comment