Thoughtful words from an Australian denominational leader (August 2002):

A few minutes ago I read the following headline and story in my morning paper: “Iraq strike plan aimed at cutting off leaders. A risky new United States strategy to depose Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein, involves seizing Baghdad and one or two key command centres and weapons depots.. Prime aims would be to kill or isolate Saddam and to pre-empt Iraq’s use of weapons of mass destruction against an incoming force, frontline allies or Israel.” (SMH 30/7/02)

How is it that the Christian church has been so silent as plans are made to invade Iraq? What has happened to our traditions, and our understanding of the peacemaking role of the Christian community? Has September 11 blunted our moral sensitivity, or our ability to raise questions about our own Government’s unqualified support for such an act of war? Or have we for so long confused the relationship between discipleship and being good citizens, that we find it hard to make the distinction and act only on the basis of perceived national intent.

For its first few centuries the Christian church assumed that it was to be a peacemaking community, a pacifist community that discouraged its members from joining the army. It saw itself as a counter-cultural community whose loyalty must always be to God and not to emperors, and who understood that discipleship and citizenship may often be in conflict.

The conversion of Constantine began a long process that changed the church forever. The Christian faith became the official faith of the community, and the church its institutional form. All those born in the community were Christian and, thus, to be disciple and citizen were the same. There were those who believed that the Roman empire was the embodiment of the kingdom of God. When Rome was threatened by invaders, it became the duty of Christians to take up arms.

The teaching that developed at this time – Just War theory – has been an honoured part of the church’s life. In considering whether it is justified for a nation to declare war against another, it posed a number of questions:

1. Is the war waged by a competent authority (i.e. the state)?

2. Is there a just cause for resorting to arms?

3. Is there a just intent (i.e. to restore peace) in resorting to arms?

4. Is there a reasonable hope of success?

5. Will the war produce a proportionate balance of good over evil?

6. Is the resort to arms a last resort?

If these criteria can be met, there are two other criteria which help determine if the war can be waged justly:

Are the actions taken in a war proportionate to what is required to complete the objective?

Actions in war should discriminate between combatants and non-combatants.

It is hard to see how the plan to invade Iraq meet these criteria. How can one country claim the right to determine that another country’s leader should be removed, particularly when the same criteria is not used consistently but only to achieve certain ends?

For the Christian community, though, there is the larger question as to whether just war theory is any longer defensible, whether it is not part of Christendom and needs to be left behind. As Stanley Hauerwas says in Speak up for Just War or Pacifism, just war theory actually shifts the debate away from questions about the meaning of discipleship to concern for appropriate policies of state.

There is an assumption that a major criteria for Christian behaviour is responsible citizenship. That is, Christians assume that they can and should participate in ruling in the community and, therefore, that they must have an ethic appropriate to sustain a civilisation. This means that, even for Christians, decisions about peace are essentially pragmatic, rather than issues about the shape of faithful discipleship.

An alternative position, one certainly held by the pacifist tradition in the church, but also hinted at in peace and disarmament documents in the Uniting Church, is that Christians need to decide in terms of what way of life will best embody a glimpse of the Kingdom as a present reality for all people. What will best support and make possible our capacity to live as Jesus calls us to live?

Our responsibility is not to sustain a civilization or. Our calling is to provide a glimpse and a foretaste of God’s reign and intention for human life. That is the best thing we can do.

One important part of this will be an effort to consider the way in which God deals with evil – through non-resistance based on a love that suffers any loss for the sake of obedience. If the Christian community seeks to be in the world as Christ was, and to anticipate the final victory of God and God’s patience in the face of evil, how will it act? It was this sort of question that led the church to its early peacemaking position.

If we are serious about sharing the good news of Jesus it is time to be serious about what it means to be church.