Scott Freeman

A Quote on War

The Christian Chronicle has just included a quote from Lee Camp on its website regarding the war. Lee Camp is the author of Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World. That book is one of the most profound and life-shaping books. I have read in recent years. Read this quote. I believe that Camp is dead on in his analysis. Especially the last paragraph.

(From the Chronicle) Lee Camp is associate professor of theology and ethics and
senior faculty fellow for the Center for International Peace and Justice at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn.

“To families who have
loved ones in Iraq, or who
have lost family members in Iraq,
the church should certainly grieve with them, pray for them and uphold them. It
is, in this sense, that we should most definitely ’support the troops,’ and it
is terribly important work to do.

“Simultaneously, we
have before us a variety of painful questions with which Christian discipleship
requires us to wrestle: First, whether war-making is a Christian calling. It
simply takes a great deal of hermeneutical gymnastics to avoid the clear
witness of Scripture, which teaches us a manner of dealing with enemies
entirely different than the manner employed by modern nation-states, including
the U.S.A. Jesus has called us to love our enemies; President Bush has called
us to ‘hunt down’ our enemies. Moreover, most of our 19th century forebears in
the Stone-Campbell restoration movement contended that war-making is not a
legitimate Christian practice. And well before that, the first three centuries
of the early church fathers entirely contended that war-making is not a
legitimate Christian practice.

“Second, even for
those who nonetheless embrace the so-called Just War tradition, we are faced
with the terribly difficult reality that the most trusted interpreters of that
tradition have, at best, raised serious questions about the legitimacy of
calling the pre-emptive war in Iraq a justifiable war; at worst, the Just “War tradition
interpreters have stated without reservation that this war makes a mockery of
the Just War tradition. That is, though
many Christians in the U.S.A.
claim to be adherents to the Just War tradition, the moral requirements of that
tradition are not being taken seriously.

“If that’s true,
then, third, we should question whether we have not been simply taken
captive
by waves of blind nationalism. As one
example, consider that President Bush has employed millennial sounding
hopes in
describing the U.S.: ‘When
we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness
of America,” (reelection speech), or that the U.S. actually takes on
the Messianic role of
“ending tyranny in our world’ (’The State of the Union,’
2005). Such language, and the popular
support of Christians that has gone with it, suggests that we are here
flirting, if not outright in bed with, idolatry. Perhaps the third
anniversary
of the war is a good time for us to practice repentance.” (Emphasis Added)