How To Kill Without Murdering--Join the Army
Are individual soldiers guilty of murder?
Most of us would say an emphatic, “No”! We explain that when sin broke loose in the Garden of Eden, the first couple was exiled, and the human race was sentenced to live here below in a stew of our own brew. But we have the Bible as a template for how to handle ultimate threats. The good guys have to be protected, so we organize an army. The problem is that you can not win a war without killing someone. In order for the Israelites to gain their due reward as God‘s people, the threatening Canaanites had to be wiped out. As Saint Augustine put it in his gloss on the Old Testament, when God tells us to kill, the killer is absolved of any guilt for the murder.
More recently, when savage Indians attacked our frontier settlements, with God’s supposedly tacit approval we eliminated the threat with superior troop strength. After all, America is the New Israel, the last, best hope for a peaceful, democratic world. We can’t let evil control the field of play. We send soldiers to do the necessary dirty work, and tell each one that his assignment to kill is a temporary expedient. Then we assure him he will be honored and considered a hero for his valiant deeds.
We even elect some hard fighting soldiers as President for their battlefield skills and dedication. Why then did Jesus not compliantly accept by popular acclamation the job of King of the Jews? Where was his national spirit and loyalty? Why did he tell his self-appointed body guard, Simon Peter, to sheath the sword. Did he see something wrong with the warring template? Apparently.
In the Garden of Gethsemanee, Jesus was using God’s authentic template when he tolerantly explained that the Roman soldiers did not understand what they were doing. This is a different kind of absolving of guilt--one that we, in our own wisdom, think is giving in to evil. What the new template asks of us is very difficult; it is counterintuitive. But Jesus had superior intuition; he not only said to not engage in killing, he provided a better, more commanding and effective way to defeat any devil that bothers us. His method was personally painful, but powerfully potent.
Modern theorists and theologians have tried to bridge the gap between idealism and pragmatism by outlining principles that justify some wars as necessary--all of which still kill people. (See the footnote in my blog of Nov. 11, 2008) But if there are any wars left that pass the test of the tough just war restrictions, still none could win the stamp of moral approval.
Actually the error in our thinking about justified killing stares us in the face. The flaw lies in our definition of justice. Peter (and St. Augustine) wanted judgment because humans can quickly administer this. Sloppy use of terms leads to exaggeration in ill results. Wars have no moral standing; they are only ethical determinations. Ethical game rules are a mother-may-I step short of morals.
Just as ethics and morals are of different genus, judgment and justice are not the same thing. Contrary to common use of the word, justice is not simply judgment with accompanying punishment. Nor is it satisfaction, as many victimized people term it when they cry out for “justice.” Punishment and penalty are only tangential procedures, ethical protocol at work; they do not bring justice.
Judgment and Mercy, in tandem, bring Justice. Judgment alone is not justice, nor is ”closure” justice. Conviction and punishment is not justice; they are only unmercified judgment. Justice, rather, is the restoring of balance, making things right again as they are meant to be. Judgment prevents naiveté. Mercy--judgment’s Siamese twin--disintegrates bigotry and hatred. Together they make punishment (and war) unnecessary, hence immoral. As per the dictionary, justice is fairness, an eminently pragmatic and satisfying resolution of an imbalance, pure and simple.
Wars are incapable of bringing justice to either side. If we really want to end wars, we must start with justice, which abhors killing. At the political level wars follow an ethical playbook (ethics defined as rules of conduct society agrees upon), but they cannot be moral, if Jesus had anything worth proclaiming. They only bring judgment and punishment; while we wait for the convicted to recuperate and return to the field to reverse the judgment of battle. As Jesus tried to teach Peter the correct understanding of God’s view of wars and killing, justice is judgment and mercy in lockstep, with punishment commuted. No one wins, so everyone wins. When justice is the goal, war gets in the way.
The difficulty is how to get this happy reality lodged in our numb skulls. How can justice prevail without war? It is easy. And the method has proven rousingly successful many times in secular history. Read Jonathan Schell’s, The Unconquerable World, to find out how.
Most of us would say an emphatic, “No”! We explain that when sin broke loose in the Garden of Eden, the first couple was exiled, and the human race was sentenced to live here below in a stew of our own brew. But we have the Bible as a template for how to handle ultimate threats. The good guys have to be protected, so we organize an army. The problem is that you can not win a war without killing someone. In order for the Israelites to gain their due reward as God‘s people, the threatening Canaanites had to be wiped out. As Saint Augustine put it in his gloss on the Old Testament, when God tells us to kill, the killer is absolved of any guilt for the murder.
More recently, when savage Indians attacked our frontier settlements, with God’s supposedly tacit approval we eliminated the threat with superior troop strength. After all, America is the New Israel, the last, best hope for a peaceful, democratic world. We can’t let evil control the field of play. We send soldiers to do the necessary dirty work, and tell each one that his assignment to kill is a temporary expedient. Then we assure him he will be honored and considered a hero for his valiant deeds.
We even elect some hard fighting soldiers as President for their battlefield skills and dedication. Why then did Jesus not compliantly accept by popular acclamation the job of King of the Jews? Where was his national spirit and loyalty? Why did he tell his self-appointed body guard, Simon Peter, to sheath the sword. Did he see something wrong with the warring template? Apparently.
In the Garden of Gethsemanee, Jesus was using God’s authentic template when he tolerantly explained that the Roman soldiers did not understand what they were doing. This is a different kind of absolving of guilt--one that we, in our own wisdom, think is giving in to evil. What the new template asks of us is very difficult; it is counterintuitive. But Jesus had superior intuition; he not only said to not engage in killing, he provided a better, more commanding and effective way to defeat any devil that bothers us. His method was personally painful, but powerfully potent.
Modern theorists and theologians have tried to bridge the gap between idealism and pragmatism by outlining principles that justify some wars as necessary--all of which still kill people. (See the footnote in my blog of Nov. 11, 2008) But if there are any wars left that pass the test of the tough just war restrictions, still none could win the stamp of moral approval.
Actually the error in our thinking about justified killing stares us in the face. The flaw lies in our definition of justice. Peter (and St. Augustine) wanted judgment because humans can quickly administer this. Sloppy use of terms leads to exaggeration in ill results. Wars have no moral standing; they are only ethical determinations. Ethical game rules are a mother-may-I step short of morals.
Just as ethics and morals are of different genus, judgment and justice are not the same thing. Contrary to common use of the word, justice is not simply judgment with accompanying punishment. Nor is it satisfaction, as many victimized people term it when they cry out for “justice.” Punishment and penalty are only tangential procedures, ethical protocol at work; they do not bring justice.
Judgment and Mercy, in tandem, bring Justice. Judgment alone is not justice, nor is ”closure” justice. Conviction and punishment is not justice; they are only unmercified judgment. Justice, rather, is the restoring of balance, making things right again as they are meant to be. Judgment prevents naiveté. Mercy--judgment’s Siamese twin--disintegrates bigotry and hatred. Together they make punishment (and war) unnecessary, hence immoral. As per the dictionary, justice is fairness, an eminently pragmatic and satisfying resolution of an imbalance, pure and simple.
Wars are incapable of bringing justice to either side. If we really want to end wars, we must start with justice, which abhors killing. At the political level wars follow an ethical playbook (ethics defined as rules of conduct society agrees upon), but they cannot be moral, if Jesus had anything worth proclaiming. They only bring judgment and punishment; while we wait for the convicted to recuperate and return to the field to reverse the judgment of battle. As Jesus tried to teach Peter the correct understanding of God’s view of wars and killing, justice is judgment and mercy in lockstep, with punishment commuted. No one wins, so everyone wins. When justice is the goal, war gets in the way.
The difficulty is how to get this happy reality lodged in our numb skulls. How can justice prevail without war? It is easy. And the method has proven rousingly successful many times in secular history. Read Jonathan Schell’s, The Unconquerable World, to find out how.
Labels: Jesus and War, Judgement, Just Wars, justice, Killing, Mercy
posted by Doug at
11:02 AM
1 Comments:
This article prompts some soul searching in me. Kelsey, my younger daughter, is interested in attending the Naval Academy. I have a hard time with the sanctioned killing by our armed forces. I guess I'm glad it's almost impossible to be accepted since then I won't have to deal with this inner conflict.
By
Travis, At
November 15, 2010 at 3:13 PM
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