A Time For War And A Time For Peace

Sermon: A Time for War and A Time for Peace.

It is fun to preach on topics like Christmas or going to heaven. However, I would not be doing my duty as a pastor if I did not occasionally speak about some dark subject. Today, that subject is war. Our Bible chronicles many wars. Today, The Council for Foreign Relations, an independent international nonpartisan think tank that tracks war data, says there are currently 31 wars on earth, the largest number since WWII ended. Those wars range from the Russia-Ukraine war to the civil war in Haiti. The Bible counts some wars as righteous, Just Wars. So, what is a Just War? What is an Unjust War?

Saint Augustine saw Just Wars as protecting peace and punishing wickedness. He based his justification for war on Romans 13:1-5. “ Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval, for it is God’s agent for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the agent of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.” 1

Saint Thomas Aquinas came along some 800 years later and did an in-depth study of what constitutes a Just War. He maintained that violence should be the last resort, but it is not always a sin to wage war. Aquinas believed an offensive war was proper against intolerable injustice. In battle, violence was justified only to the extent necessary to defeat the enemy combatants while avoiding cruelty. However, in the pursuit of justice, and with good intentions, a moral act could justify negative consequences including killing innocents. Aquinas set three criteria for a Just War. Firstly, a declaration of war must come from the rightful sovereign. Secondly, a just cause must be the reason for the war, some wrong the attacked have committed. Thirdly, the intent of the war must be to promote good and to avoid evil. 2, 3

For illustrations of Just Wars, we look back on three of America’s wars: John Locke and his ideas concerning the natural rights of man led to a novel form of government in America. Our Revolution was thus extraordinary for it introduced self-government to the world. Government of the people, for the people, by the people was truly unusual for at that time the nations of the world were ruled only by kings, emperors, potentates, chiefs, and strongmen. The idea of natural rights bloomed into the abolition of slavery after our Civil War. In World War II, we were attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and four days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Certainly, classifying these and many other American wars as Just Wars is accurate. However, Just Wars kill, maim, destroy, and scar minds just as do Unjust Wars.

Unjust Wars are conflicts in which one party attempts to enforce dominance on another party. The reasons for such wars range from any number of causes including economic gain, power, ethnic cleansing, or religious differences. 4 Our first example of unjust wars is the many aggressions for territorial gain by the United States against Native American tribes. A second example: In October 2002, America convened a war on Iraq by a joint resolution in Congress to eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction in the arsenal of Dictator Saddam Hussein. When we found no such weapons, we discovered that US intelligence had slanted estimates, even falsified, to accommodate political pressures. The justification for the Spanish-American War remains debated. From the Spanish perspective, the United States interference was unjustified. “Remember the Maine”, February 1895, this phrase referred to the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor in Spanish-controlled Cuba. American journalists used that phrase to create enthusiasm in America for a war with Spain. “Remember the Maine” was widely employed by the press operations of early newspaper, known generally for “yellow,” or biased, journalism. Driven by this kind of misinformation and colonial ambitions, America saw the war as a moral duty to protect oppressed Cubans and expand our influence. The post-war actions of the United States such as the Platt Amendment established US control over the former Spanish sovereignty for Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba. 5 The current war of Russia on the Ukraine is unjust for it is a blatant seizing of the territory of another nation. Iran’s proxy war on Israel has the stated aim of illuminating Israel from the face of the earth. Such are the examples of unjust wars.