Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should Christians Go to War? Yes. | Questions You're Asking | Romans 13.3-4

Starting point is 00:00:05 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're answering questions that you're asking. A lot of these are coming from our Facebook page. So if you follow 10-minute Bible Talks on Facebook, you can ask questions that you want us to answer or vote on questions that other people are asking. It's 1941, and you're the president of the United States. The world is in turmoil.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Germany, under Hitler, is marching through Europe. It looks like soon they will dominate the whole continent. What would you do if you were in that situation? Would it be right as a Christian for you to call our nation to war? If you were in the military, would it be right for you to go to war? In other words, would it fit with the biblical worldview that you hold? You could ask the same questions after nine of the last. 11 when the United States was attacked by terrorists. If you had been president then, or if you had

Starting point is 00:01:08 been a member of the military, what would you have done? Would you have felt confident as the president leading our nation into war? Or would you have been confident in participating in the war had you been in the military? You might have already listened to the previous episode where Patrick argued that Christians shouldn't go to war. That view is called pacifism. And while Patrick argued that position, I don't think he's really a pacifist. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with some scenarios that he would favor the use of violence, even if reluctantly. But I get why pacifism is very popular. We've all had enough of wars and their effects on everybody involved. We've seen enough killing and violence and death and destruction and deprivation. We've seen enough of the soldiers

Starting point is 00:02:00 who come home with both physical and psychological injuries. We've seen enough of the families who suffer and sacrifice. In light of all that we've seen, pacifism is very attractive. This question about whether Christians can participate in war has been vigorously debated throughout church history. But I think there's a lot of things that Christians agree on. For example, all Christians believe war is a product of this. sinful world. There were no wars before sin entered into the world, and there won't be any wars when

Starting point is 00:02:35 Jesus returns and fully establishes kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Isaiah the prophet writes this in chapter 2 verse 4. It's a vision of heaven, and he says, they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hook. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore. wars and violence of every kind are a product of living in a sinful world. When we see wars between nations, we can rightly say that's not the way it's supposed to be, and we can look forward to the day that there will be no more wars. But until that day, Christians must wrestle with whether Christians can participate in war. I think what the Bible teaches is that Christians in the military can participate in just wars.

Starting point is 00:03:26 And to call some wars just is to say that some wars are unjust and therefore inappropriate for Christians to participate in. Just war theory dates all the way back to one of the greatest thinkers in the history of the church, St. Augustine. Augustine lived at the end of the 300s and beginning of the 400s AD in North Africa. It's hard to speak of almost any major Christian doctrine without mentioning him. He was that important and influential and developing. Christian theology. And his view of war can be summed up in this quote by him. Augustine said, We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. That doesn't sound much different than General Schwarzkopf said at the beginning of the Gulf War back in the early

Starting point is 00:04:15 90s. He said that no soldier worth his salt will call himself or herself pro-war. No Christian should call themselves pro-war either. We all want peace. Thomas Aquinas came along in the 1200s and built on and refined Augustine so that together Augustine and Aquinas are the major proponents of just war theory. And just war theory is rooted in Romans 13. There the apostle Paul writes for rulers, now he's talking about here about government rulers and notice that Paul is writing this in the Roman empire. And so he's not thinking of a Christian ruler. He's just thinking of all rulers, all government officials, whether they be Christian or not. He says, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of authority? Do what is good, and you will have its approval,

Starting point is 00:05:11 for it is God's servant for your good. In other words, government is God's servant for your good. but if you do wrong, be afraid because it does not carry the sword for no reason, for it is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong. So the Apostle Paul seems to be saying here that God has appointed human government, even sinful, even pagan human governments, and given them certain authorities for the good of society, for human flourishing. And one of the things that God has done is given government, the ability of the ability to be given the ability to to punish wrongdoing. It does not carry the sword for no reason. Or think about the soldiers who heard John the Baptist preaching. John the Baptist was preaching to a big crowd, and different people

Starting point is 00:06:02 were responding, but John was saying, hey, look, you need to really repent. And they were saying, well, what's that look like? And when he got to some soldiers, they said, well, what should we do? Now, think about this. Here are these soldiers saying, in light of what you're preaching John, how should we respond? He could have said, well, get out of the military, go AWOL, unenlist. But that's not what he said. When the soldiers ask, what should we do, John says, don't extort money or make false accusations and be content with your pay. In other words, John seems to say to do your job with integrity. Don't use your position as a soldier for personal gain. You see, sometimes in a sinful broken world, the most loving thing you can do,

Starting point is 00:06:47 is go to war. But why you go to war and how you practice war, that really matters. It matters to God. So just war theory is not an excuse to just be a part of any war that a country wants to be a part of. It's not an excuse for indiscriminate warring. No, just war theory is the recognition that in this broken world, sometimes war is the best choice among a lot of bad options. So what defines a just war? Well, there are six criteria that have to be met. The first is just cause. There has to be a just and proper reason for going to war.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Some of those justifiable reasons could include things like self-defense or protecting the innocent, maybe stopping a genocide, restoring human rights, assisting an ally in self-defense. So under that criteria, you could see why World War II would be said to have a just cause. because the United States got into World War II because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was in self-defense. Or you could see why the Civil War would have a just cause. It was done to liberate people from slavery. Second criteria, proportionate cause. The good of going to war must outweigh the destruction and death that will be caused by war. Look, everybody knows that war cause all kinds of destruction. So you have to sit back and think, is that

Starting point is 00:08:15 the good that is going to come about worth the cost. Going to war must prevent more evil and suffering than it is expected to cause. Third, right intention. Our reason and motives for engaging in warfare must be noble. We can go to war to right or wrong. We can go to war to restore peace, but we can't go to war for national pride or to seek revenge against the enemy. for right authority. War can only be authorized by a legitimate governing authority. A governing authority that would fit the criteria of Romans 13. So I as a person can't declare war,

Starting point is 00:08:58 only the government can. But not just any government, it's the president of the United States, along with Congress, who have the right to declare war. A state governor can't do that. Five, reasonable chance of success. So war is going to, going to bring about violence and pain and suffering, and that cost is only worth paying if it will outweigh the destruction and death that will be caused by the war. If there's no reasonable chance of success, if you have no hope of winning this war, then there can be really no reason for ever starting the war. Why endure all the pain and suffering without the hope of a better life afterwards. Six, last resort. War should always be the last resort, all peaceful alternatives,

Starting point is 00:09:46 diplomacy, sanctions, political pressure. Those should all be exhausted before going to war. We don't want to go to war. We only go to war when it is the last resort, the last option available to us. So let's go back. It's 1941, and you're the president of the United States. You're a member of United States military. What would you do? Do you think that as a Christian, following King Jesus, that you could go to war? Does it meet these criteria? What about the Civil War? If you were a Christian, could you participate in that with a clean conscience? Or the wars that have come since 9-11? The reality is that just war theory is subjective. All six of the criteria that I've laid out for you, just cause, proportionate cause, right intention, right authority, reasonable chance of success,

Starting point is 00:10:42 last resort. Well, they're subjective. It's hard to say for sure, and therefore you won't have 100% agreement that this is the right thing for our country to do or the right thing for an individual to do. So you use these criteria, you pray for wisdom, and you make a decision. This is a broken world, and oftentimes the decisions we make are not the ones we wish we could make. Oftentimes the way things are are not the way we wish they were. And that includes when we have to go to war. Sometimes the best thing a Christian can do, the most loving thing a Christian can do, is to go to war. Thanks for listening.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should Christians Go to War? Yes. | Questions You're Asking | Romans 13.3-4

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