Islam is, in many ways, a fine religion. However, it clearly undermines its credibility through its commitment to coercive jihad. It seems that most Muslims prefer to live in peace. I suspect this is possible for them because of selective reading of the Koran. Good for them. But the call to violence within Islam is unmistakeable. The group Open Doors USA reviewed the level of violence committed against Christians in the world in 2016. In 45 of the 50 most violent countries, the primary source of violence was Islamic repression. ISIS is well known for its brutality. Attacks directed at civilians, including other Muslims, has become common over the last several decades. 9/11.
The other end of the current ideological spectrum is the catch-all group known as humanists. There are many stripes of humanists, but the common factor in the camp is that they look to humans (or, most commonly, the one human, Self) as the highest authority for determining truth. The consequence of this commitment is a rudderless ideology. For every conscientious impulse that comes from it, such as defending the rights of women, there are as many conscienceless impulses, such as apathy toward the unborn. For every effort to encourage care for the earth through conservation, there is a carelessness concerning relational commitment. While there are many humanists who profess genuine concern for the wellbeing of humanity, there are others who are shockingly cavalier. Hitler was dedicated to the Arian race, and despised all other races, to their peril. Stalin was passionate about economic parity all humans, though he had no qualms about eradicating any who resisted. Without a rudder you never know where your boat will wash up…or if it will wash up. This is why humanism has always been hundreds of times more violent than all other ideologies or religions.
But enough of picking on popular 21st century ideologies. My real concern here is the Christian church. Unlike Islam, which is essentially theocratic, Christians, after some ill-considered marriages with various States over many centuries, have generally come to recognize that it is best to keep Church and State separate. This is reasonable for Christianity since, by definition, it is made up of those who freely choose to be Christians. So Christianity has this awareness of being an optional life perspective within a larger culture, whether in the U.S., or Saudi Arabia, or in Siberia. Christians do not want the State telling them how to worship or what they should worship. And, frankly, Christians do not want to impose Christianity on those who do not believe it. For example, Christians specifically request non-Christians to not take part in Communion, since Communion is essentially a profession of faith.
So here’s where I get to the point. Christianity is guilty of hiding behind this separation of Church and State. There are some people, both Christian and non-Christian, who think that separation of Church and State means that people should not bring their “faith” or their “faith issues” into government. This is nonsense. There is not a person on the planet who operates without an ideological outlook, and who does not function on the basis of faith. There is no such thing as a neutral ideological outlook. Democracy itself is an ideology that trusts in the wisdom of the collective populace. The founders of the United States were well aware of how tyrannical democracy can be. This is why our Constitution is designed with various units of power—the Executive Branch, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Judiciary, and the general public, which is protected by the Bill of Rights.
It is not possible for any person to vote, or even to act as a representative in a government office, without acting in accordance, or at least being highly influenced by the ideological framework through which he views the world. Generally speaking, this is a good thing. It’s important for all people to act as checks to the orders they are given. While it is important for people to function corporately, and loyalty is also a positive trait, people also need the wisdom and courage to oppose orders that are foolish and/or unjust.
I had a friend who once told me, “You can’t legislate morality.” On one level she was right. There are “hate” laws, but laws can’t reach deep enough into my soul to keep me from hating. But, fundamentally, she was wrong. The greater truth is that you can’t not legislate morality. By that I mean that any time you write a piece of legislation you are establishing a rule that defines right behavior. One example of this is the ubiquitous Stop sign. The law says that when you are driving a motor vehicle and you happen on one of these signs, you are to bring your vehicle to a complete stop at the crosswalk line. (My experience as a pedestrian convinces me that most drivers do not know the detail about the line.) Then you are to look carefully at other traffic near the intersection and proceed through the intersection only when it is safe to do so.
We don’t have Stop signs at millions of intersections because of a national affection for red octagons. We don’t have them because there is a mechanical benefit to giving our vehicles regular rest. No, we all want to travel from here to there and do not want to end up mangled or dead in the process. Stop signs serve to keep us safe. This may seem obvious…but it is not obvious. If it were obvious we would not have to write laws and we would not have to employ policemen to enforce the laws. As it is, you undoubtedly have encountered more than a few drivers who don’t seem to give a damn about anyone else’s life. It would be wonderful if we didn’t need laws but, as it is, it is critical that we legislate morality with stop signs. All legislation can be similarly explained.
Now some legislation is better than other legislation at serving the common good. The trick is defining “good”. Different ideologies will define it differently, but saying to someone else, “Don’t bring your ideology into my politics” is an absurdity…or, just as likely, a kind of coercion aimed at silencing opposing viewpoints.
You can’t even say, “Well, you, as an individual, may act according to your own conscience, but religious institutions have no place in politics.” The nature of organizations is that they tend to be populated with individuals who agree on one thing or another. Shall we eliminate unions from politics? Shall we eliminate lobby associations? Shall we disallow Black Lives Matter from making political statements? What about the NRA? What about lobbyists for the Equal Rights Amendment? In the end, the perspective that the Church, as an institution, should stay out of politics, is a bit silly. Politics should be about ideological perspectives speaking loudly and clearly (while listening respectfully and carefully to other ideologies) in order to help formulate legislation that is fair and beneficial to society. It is the silence of ideologies that allows for narrowness and corruption in legislation. And so, back to the issue of violence.
The Christian church is generally non-violent…but it is also weak at expressing concerns about violence in the political realm.
The United States is a very powerful nation, which means financially influential, as well as war-like. We Americans like to talk about ourselves as champions of democracy, defenders of the oppressed, and keepers of world peace. There is some truth in all this; we do a lot of good in the world. But the United States is not an innocent State. It was Eisenhower, in his 1961 farewell address to the nation, who proclaimed that America needed to take steps to protect itself from the “military industrial complex”. What is the military budget of the United States? $825 billion, or 2/3 of the discretionary budget goes to the military. Aside from the U.S., the following countries have the greatest military budgets: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany. The military budget of the U.S. is greater than the combined budgets of these eight countries.
We need to put reigns on the military industrial complex. No doubt, every country in the world feels some need to arm itself in order to keep neighboring countries from poaching its borders (or poaching its capital city). But much more critical oversight needs to be given to the arming of the world. Are we really promoting security or are we promoting war?
We have effectively anointed ourselves police service for the world. How well has the U.S. done in terms of staying out of unnecessary wars? What good came of our involvement in the Vietnam War? What good came of our invasion of Iraq? In both cases it seems that U.S. involvement caused more harm than good. I don’t mean this simply with respect to all those who died, though many did pay that price—and many others were permanently disabled, while many others suffered greatly and endured financial hardships. But I also mean that there were (are) lengthy, negative residual effects in the regions where those wars took place. History has shown that we should not engage in war unless, one, the adversary is an imminent threat to its neighbors; two, we plan to win the war and; three, we are committed to providing aid for stabilizing the region when the war concludes. All these are easier said than done. All the more reason to be slow to engage in war. War is not like a wedding. For war, it is better to arrive late than early.
What is the average age of those government officials and military leaders who make decisions about entering war? I’ll guess 60. What is the likelihood of any of those decision-makers getting wounded or killed in military conflict? I’ll guess 1% for the winners, 10% for the losers. What is the average age of soldiers sent into combat? I’ll guess 23…and decreasing as the size of the conflict grows. Our wars have been launched by old, rich men and fought by poor, young men. And when the war is over and all the bodies buried and all the wounds patched up and all the limbs strapped in place, who is it who walks away with bags full of money? Old, rich men. We ought to make it a law that soldiers are drafted on the basis of age and net worth. We can start with the billionaires over 70 and work down. I bet that would put a damper on our nation’s aggression. Put the old men on the front lines.
Technology has transported the American people to the battlefields. You can brainwash a lot of people into thinking that marching off to war is the patriotic thing to do. And we can shame the young boys into signing up because acting otherwise is unpatriotic and cowardly. But when kids are having their legs blown off and you can watch it on the evening news, some kick-back is generated, such as, “Why does my boy have to be killed for some patch of desert half way across the world?” Does our fighting eliminate “the threat” or does it add fuel to the fire? Tough questions to answer.
Our government has addressed the problem by sanitizing our involvement. We now provide weapons and training, fire our weapons from remote distances, spy, and assassinate with drones. It’s the best of all worlds. We still make lots of money on the sale of second-rate military equipment and ordinance and we hardly spill any local blood. In April we dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb (MOAB-“mother of all bombs) ever used on an ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan. (The bomb’s name is ironic. Did they mean that using it would lead to the reproduction and use of many others?)
People don’t easily forgive and forget when they’re being used for target practice. The West has been targeted by many Islamic suicide bombers. While there are a few extremists bent on initiating the Final Conflagration, most of the fighters are motivated by revenge. We can try to distance ourselves from the carnage we wreak, but it can’t be done. In another irony, by destabilizing Iraq and Syria, Islamic refugees have flooded Europe. It’s an invasion by the (mostly) innocent, but our war policies are destabilizing the West, as well! We must not imagine that war is okay as long as our boys are not getting killed and maimed. Somebody’s boys are getting killed and maimed. Our international policy should be to promote peace and stability. Lives everywhere in the world are important. Iraqi lives are valuable. North Korean lives are valuable. Somali lives are valuable. Russian lives are valuable. We are not doing enough to promote diplomacy in the world. Our heavy-handedness promotes hatred, and hatred leads to killing and war.
We do not need to saber-rattle with North Korea.
We have a United Nations. One of its highest priorities should be international diplomacy and disarmament. Will the nations ever disarm? I doubt that very much. But we can de-escalate. We can reduce our nuclear stockpile…probably never enough to protect the world from total destruction, but, nevertheless, we ought to try. Even if we cut the bombs to a quarter of the current number, that would be a fine reduction in the risk of accidents.
And why do we arm the world?
The Christian Church has a great deal of responsibility for all of this. We sit innocently in our pews and exclaim, “Wow, did you hear about that massive bomb the U.S. used in Afghanistan? Violence is a bad thing but, well, they ought to have more sense than to mess with the U.S.”
How is this different than Pilot washing his hands of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? He clearly was not the instigator…and he even objected. But washing his hands was a lie. He had the power to do right and washing his hands did not remove his responsibility. If you are an American Christian, the United States government represents you. You are as responsible for its actions as anyone else in the country. Is the business of the Church politics? Not particularly. But justice is. Justice in the world is a business of the Christian church.
We need to start thinking differently about our responsibility for international peace. The Church should be the voice of peace in America. The Church needs to put pressure on the politicians of this land to work for peace. We need to put international diplomacy at a premium. We need to be careful about international business operations. There is nothing wrong with profitable business operations, as long as they are beneficial to the residents where they are located. The U.S. should not practice international exploitation. The U.S. should take care not to practice cultural, financial, and military imperialism. If our profits are reduced by 10% in order for international workers to provide for their own basic needs, then that’s what we should do.
The stability of nations should be recognized as more important than the democratization of nations. Democracy is a good, but it is a good because it aids in providing fairness for individuals. But when countries are destabilized, made dangerous, and fall into anarchy, then democracy has just become a starry-eyed excuse for cruel irresponsibility. A great plan for creating militants is to destabilize the countries where they live.
We should avoid interference in the internal affairs of other countries, if at all possible. Meddling is Russia’s MO—it doesn’t have to be ours.
War is always a bad idea. Sometimes it is necessary, but that is only when the alternative is a worse idea…and that is almost never.
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