Posted on 09/18/2001 5:20:28 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
One doesn't have to hate in order to fight. To kill.
It does not require us to feed a fire of hatred and rage to wage war against evil.
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him," wrote C.K. Chesterton, one of the 20th century's great Christian apologists.
Some of the reports coming out of Sunday's sermons and other statements by religious leaders revealed an uneasy disconnect, as if they see no compatibility with faith and war.
A people of faith make a fundamental mistake when we try to rationalize our beliefs with what needs to be done. In cases that don't prove revealing, the temptation is to shrug and say, "Oh well, we'll just put our religion on the shelf and take care of what has to be done."
But, as Chesterton pointed out, one should fight because of what one cherishes. To fight out of loathing leaves one exposed to becoming like the enemy, filled with a unfocused rage, driven not by love but by hate.
Yet there is an uneasiness when people of faith are called to take up arms. We hear that we worship a loving God, and for Christians, we hear about the peacemaker himself.
As years of prosperity go by, we hear less and less about evil. I can't remember a sermon in a lifetime of sermons that was preached on the devil. We love to hear the Christmas story but neglect the slaughter of innocents that followed. We have whole denominations that doubt there is a hell. Only heaven.
It is easier, nicer to admire the flowers than be reminded that there lurks in this world a power that would rid the world of flowers, one flower at a time if need be.
But if that is our view, then as people of faith we have forgotten the history of our church; it is one of fighting evil. History has not afforded such a luxury to our Jewish brothers, who bear the memory of evil in their hearts, if not on their forearms.
For Christians who believe there are many reasons God became incarnate, we prefer to worship a babe in swaddling clothes rather than one who came to declare victory over the forces of evil, the prince of darkness.
But perhaps it is possible that only a people of faith can comprehend the attack on America last week. How is it possible to comprehend and respond to such acts without acknowledging that history is in a real sense a chronicle of the evil man perpetrates and continues until halted by good?
If there is no God, or one doesn't believe there is, how does one comprehend life? As an accident? If it is an accident, then why the outrage when it is eradicated? By what measure are we outraged? That an accident of nature has reared up and slaughtered another accident of nature?
Are we not outraged because we know that what has reared its ugly head is not an accident, but willful evil, and it has slaughtered not the accidents, but the innocents?
Yes, there will be people of faith who are squeamish about this war. Perhaps they have been tending too long to the flowers to have noticed the shadow passing over.
Or perhaps, they are simply afraid. Fear is a human response in the face of danger. Yet, for a people of faith, there is a resounding call, heard throughout the ages:
Fear not.
Thomas Oliver is a member of the Journal editorial board. His column appears Tuesday.
Men are moved in these things by something far higher and holier than policy; by hatred. When men hung on in the darkest days of the Great War, suffering either in their bodies or in their souls for those they loved, they were long past caring about details of diplomatic objects as motives for their refusal to surrender. Of myself and those I knew best I can answer for the vision that made surrender impossible. It was the vision of the German Emperor's face as he rode into Paris. This is not the sentiment which some of my idealistic friends describe as Love. I am quite content to call it hatred; the hatred of hell and all its works, and to agree that as they do not believe in hell they need not believe in hatred. But in the face of this prevalent prejudice, this long introduction has been unfortunately necessary, to ensure an understanding of what is meant by a religious war. There is a religious war when two worlds meet; that is when two visions of the world meet; or in more modern language when two moral atmospheres meet. What is the one man's breath is the other man's poison; and it is vain to talk of giving a pestilence a place in the sun.
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