Category: Politics

If one makes even a cursory reading on war, one is immediately convinced of how dreadful it is. Whether one reads Josephus’ account of Rome’s war against Jerusalem in AD 70, or one reads of both Axis and Allied atrocities during WWII one learns quickly why someone once said “War is Hell.”

War brings not only death, but cruel death. Death by famine, pestilence, torture, and cannibalism. War brings death instantly and death to those who wish they had been blessed to die instantly.

War brings out the worst in man … envy, hatred, callousness, and selfishness.

Because this is so, War, for the Biblical Christian, has always been taught to be a matter of last resort. These Christians who believe that war is terrible but sometimes unavoidable have always embraced what is called “Just War teaching.” And we will be looking at that as we probe what Scripture has to say about when Christians fighting war is warranted.

Because war is so terrible, many Christians through the ages have taken a position that no Christian should ever be involved in violence against another person no matter what. This position has been called “pacifism.” It is a position often associated with the ana-baptist wing of thinking.

The reason we are taking this up, is because the War Drums are being beaten again, and as such I want us to be informed so that as Christians we can take up both our Christian duty and our civic duty. I will be giving the principles of Just War theory this morning and seeking to support those principles from Scripture. As tempting as it might be, I will not be telling people what to think about the current war call that is being advanced.

Before we get to the criteria for Just war I want to spend just a few minutes laying the groundwork to negate the idea that a Christian should never ever involve themselves in War because War, is ipso facto sinful. These brief 5 points are introduced in order to dismiss the idea of the Pacifists who teach that war is always wrong all the time.

1.) First, God repeatedly aligns and identify’s Himself with war and the warrior in Scripture. This is proof that war can be consistent with Christian involvement.

Isaiah 42:13 The Lord goes out like a mighty man,
like a man of war he stirs up his zeal;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.

In Revelation 19:11-12 we see the Messiah likewise being portrayed as a Warrior,

11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

The point here is that if War were automatically evil in and of itself then God could never be spoken in Scripture as being as a Warrior. Just as God never refers to Himself as a liar, murderer or homosexual, because these behaviors are inherently evil, so God would never refer to Himself as a Warrior if War was inherently evil.

2.) Second, God commanded His people to engage in War. If War were inherently and intrinsically evil, then such a command would be inherently and intrinsically evil.

Judges 4:6-7

6 She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. 7 And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?”

3.) In Deuteronomy 20:1-20 God gave explicit words on how war is to be conducted. We looked at these carefully in a recent Evening Service series. The point is that if God gave explicit words on how war is to be conducted therefore it can not be the case that to be involved in war is always wrong all the time.

4.) Many of the Saints of the OT, bragged on in Hebrews 11:33-34 were men of war and are commended as Warriors.

Hebrews says of these Saints that they … “became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”

God would never commend that which is intrinsically evil.

5.) Romans 13:1-4 explicitly says that the Magistrate, who is a minister of God, has been given the Sword.

for he is God’s servant … he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

Explain the symbolism of the sword.

So, these five points dismiss the pacifist notion that War is always wrong all the time. There are times when War is just in God’s sight.

So, as we consider what constitutes Just War we say at the outset that if we lived in a world that was un-fallen there of course would never be war. War comes about because, as James 4 teaches,

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions[a] are at war within you?[b] 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

So war is a result of bent passions and avaricious selfishness of the wicked. And just war is the means by which those bent passions and avaricious selfishness is halted. For a Christian Magistrate, war is where He uses the Sword, per Romans 13, to execute God’s justice against those who are terrorizing those who desire to live a peaceful and quite life that is godly in every way (I Tim. 2:2). The Christian magistrate like God is a warrior when he has needs to oppose the attempt of the wicked to tyrannize the righteous.

What I am about to give you in terms of Just War theory is not new with me. This teaching goes far back to chaps like Ambrose and Augustine in the 4th century and was elaborated upon by Aquinas in the 13th century, and has been refined over and over again through the centuries from that point forward. Some of these men spent more of their time anchoring just war theory in Scripture, while others sought to universalize just war theory by anchoring it in what they viewed as Natural Law.

We will give the several principles of Just war theory so you can see them gathered together.

1.) War can only be sanctioned and called for by the duly recognized authority.

Here we have an example of the jurisdictionalism which we bring out often here. The family has a sphere of jurisdiction, the church has a sphere of jurisdiction and the civil magistrate has a sphere of jurisdiction. Romans 13, which we cited earlier, clearly teaches that the Magistrate is a minister of God who wields the sword. War is a sword wielding event. In our own Constitution the sanctioning of War can only legally be called for by the US Congress, though this has been ignored often in our history with the Executive branch doing the sanctioning.

2.) War has to be waged because of a just cause. And of course the idea of “just” has to be defined consistent with God’s Scriptural revelation.

We return here to the idea of the Magistrates sword. The magistrate is only to use His sword in keeping with what God defines as “just.” “Just causes” we can imagine taking up the sword for would be to protect life (6th comm), protect property (8th commandment), avenging evil, etc. Obviously, if these kinds of evil could not be resisted, then we would live under the maxim that might makes right.

Also we must note here that consistent with God’s word, any war that is prosecuted against a judicially innocent people, inflicting upon them the penalty of war despite their innocence, would require that those prosecuting the unjust war be visited with the penalty of war that they were seeking to implement against the judicially innocent.

This is a principle gleaned from passages like,

Dt. 19:16 — If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.

Returning then to the theme of “just cause,” we would note that Augustine here offered that war can be waged justly as a defense against aggression and for the protection of life and liberty. Augustine also held that war, on certain occasions, could be fought because of wrongs inflicted on a nation through economic or other means. Thus, war should only be waged to vindicate justice. The goal of war, taught Augustine, was the restoration of international peace.

Let me give you just a hint of what we will find on this matter. With some exceptions, Just war is defensive war. Now, defensive wars can have offensive movements in them, but the war itself, in just war theory, is most commonly Defensive war. Wars of aggression, or wars to build Empire, are by definition, not just wars and so need to be opposed by all Christians.

Southern Theologian R. L. Dabney offered, “Defensive war is, then, righteous, and only a defensive war.”

3.) The war is waged with right intention.

This one is added so that War is advertised with the just cause while the real reason is for some other selfish purpose such as the desire for territory, or some advantaged gained in seizing significant trade routes, or by seizing some Natural resource that is needed.

Mosely contends that “a just war cannot be considered to be just if reasons of national interest are paramount or overwhelm the pretext of fighting aggression.”

Here we must note that a State almost never beats the war drums without insisting that the cause is humanitarian or noble. States do not say … “we are going to war in order to seize oil reserves, or in order to protect the American dollar against those who are seeking to set up other International economies that would destroy us …” Remember the maxim that the first casualty of War is the truth.

States always sell War by telling their people that their cause is just, true and right. It is up to the citizenry then to do the best they can to ferret out the truth. As in all things, but especially in War, we should follow the Maxim, “Let the buyer beware.”

Here we need to insert Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler’s observation that “War is a Racket.” It is incumbent upon us as Christians, when determining whether or not to support a war or to speak out against it, to “follow the money.” It would be naive of us to not look at the economic equation behind war pursued. Butler, in his short book just mentioned, suggested that even when he was being used as a Mercenary (turn of the 20th century) for big Corporate interests, the wars of his nation were always about money, or turning a profit for the Corporatists. It is not Just war to fight to enrich the Oligarchs, the Cartels, and the Corporatists who advance their position by blood.

4.) War can only be justified once all other avenues of recourse are exhausted. This is consistent with a principle we find in Matthew 18

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Here we see reconciliation is exhaustively pursued before sanctions are levied.

One of the early Reformed writers on this subject Johannes Althusisus could write on this score,

Althusius stated: “Just cause for waging war occurs when all other remedies have first been exhausted and peace and justice cannot otherwise be obtained.”

And again,

This authority to undertake war ought not to be employed by the magistrate unless all other remedies have failed, and there is no other way to repel an attack upon his subjects, to avoid and vindicate injustice to them, or to obtain peace and tranquillity in the realm….But before undertaking war a magistrate should check his own judgment and reasoning, and offer prayers to God to arouse and direct the spirit and mind of his subjects and himself to the well-being, utility, and necessity of the church and community, and to avoid all rashness and injustice….

5.) The War waged can be a War successfully prosecuted.

This is consistent with what we find in Luke 14:28-32,

28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

On this score, we have to keep in mind that war is so terrible and the consequences so grave that it should not be prosecuted if there is no hope of winning. To wage a war that can’t be won would be nothing less then murder of the citizenry by the Magistrate.

Exceptions noted

1.) Exception for National or people group survival
2.) Exception to avoid enslavement

6.) The End must envision a better state of affairs then the end envisioned if war is not prosecuted. The overall destruction that will come should be weighed against by the good that is aimed at.

7.) War is principally fought by soldiers that are male.

Numbers 1 and Numbers 26 both have God telling the leadership,

“List all the men twenty years old or older who are able to go to war.”

War that is fought with women would make a war unjust. Again, national survival might be an exception, but any people who use their women as combatants is a people who are already lost to the God of the Bible.

8.) War is not total. Distinction between soldier and civilians maintained.

This Biblical principle found in Dt. 20 was largely followed by the civilized West and was only reversed on a grand scale in the 19th century in the States. Ever since then though it has been largely the way we conduct war.

Wars that typically abide under these maxims are generally defensive wars. Wars that are protecting hearth and home. Exceptions may exist for that but those exceptions are very constrained.

In Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants) we find language that speaks of fighting wars that are not strictly in defense of hearth and home. It asks the question “Whether neighbor princes may, or are bound by law to aid the subjects of other princes“. The answer is a qualified yes; providing some very strict criterion are met. For example, the oppression must be grievous, the chances of defeating the tyrant must be reasonable, the aid must be done with no objective of personal gain, and we are most obligated to aid those closest to us in terms of blood, religion, and geography. In other words, a ruler being a “bad guy” is nowhere near enough justification. This fits very well with the Christian Just War Theory and was doubtless influenced by just war categories.

So, there may be times when just War is pursued besides defense of home and hearth but in general just war has typically found that War is only just when it is defensive.

E. J. Carnell sums it up nicely,

Defensive warfare is simply the use of a national police force to destroy gangsterism on an international scale. The soldier is in exactly the same position as the civil officer at the scene of a bank robbery. Each must put down perversity with force. War is the last expedient to which a nation can turn when its survival is threatened by those bent on world domination and the lust for power. There is no doubt but that war is a terrible thing, almost too awful to speak of without tears in our voices. But the consequence of not matching force with force within the collective ego is infinitely less bearable. We will destroy the very securities within which men can preach and hear the Word of Life; we will betray all of the forms that guarantee our basic freedoms; and, worst of all, we will commit a sin against the very God who has ordained that Christian citizens be subject to those who have been placed in civil office as a praise to the good and a terror to the evil.

Recently I had a conversation with a young woman who just positively glowed about the benefits of Democracy. I seem to get in these kinds of conversations frequently. Of course people who say they love Democracy have no earthly idea what they are saying. I believe they think they are saying that they Love America. The Problem is, is that America was not formed as a Democracy.

So, in order to understand Democracy we must have an understanding of what it means. Democracy is merely mobocracy. It is the idea that a 50% plus 1 vote equals legal rule. As such, we could cite the whimsical, but true saw, that Democracy is 3 wolves and 2 Lambs voting on what is for dinner.

The fact that our founders hated the idea of Democracy is found in the words of James Madison (you know … he who is known as the Father of our non-democracy Constitution). Madison said

“[D]emocracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Our Second President, John Adams said of Democracy,

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

What follows is a flurry of quotes on Democracy. Of course my young female friend had no idea of what Democracy really means or else she would have never been so vehement about supporting the silliness and danger that is Democracy.

“A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens…which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it…which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’ ‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.” ~

Robert A. Heinlein

“Democratism and its allied herd movements, while remaining loyal to the principle of equality and identity, will never hesitate to sacrifice liberty.” ~ Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

“Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.” ~ Hans-Herman Hoppe

“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.” ~ Aristotle

“Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone’s slave.” ~ Karl Kraus

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” ~ H.L. Mencken

American was not founded as a Democracy. It was founded as a Constitutional Republic. Of course that has been largely lost via government education combined with brain dead politicians who are forever giving us claptrap about America as that “great shining Democracy that the whole world aspires to be.

In point of fact the degeneration of our nation can be largely traced to the tendency of our Nation to embrace more and more mechanisms that smack of Democracy. The elimination of the US Senators being voted upon by State Legislators in 1913. The tendency towards referendum ballot initiatives. (Initiatives that are consistently ignored if the population doesn’t vote the way the State desire the outcome to end.) The push in some quarters to get rid of the Electoral College. All of these movements towards Democracy chip away at the Liberty upon which this diverse nation was founded.

Democracy … the killer of nations and the midwife of tyranny.

Joseph Sobran once said, “I don’t have a dog in this fight. My dog died a long time ago.” So it is with election 2012, for when it comes to the major Demopublican and Republicrat parties I have no dog in the fight. The whole political paradigm of “Left vs. Right” comes to us from the French Revolution and just as both “Left and Right” then was a division of Jacobins all, so today our Left (Obama) vs. Right (Romney) finds us having to choose between one Jacobin or another of varying degrees. So, voting for the Major parties for an informed person is not an option since such a choice really amounts to having to vote for the “left side of the left” or having to vote for “the right side of the left.” I choose neither.

Because I believe that diffuse, limited, and decentralized Government is a biblical norm I will be voting for the Constitutional party candidate, Virgil Goode. The Statism of the major parties is not an option and neither is any candidate that represents movement Libertarianism. The problem of the political “One and the Many” is not solved by voting for any Candidate or party that would give us the “One” to the neglect of the “Many” (Movement Libertarianism), or the “Many” to the neglect of the “One” (Statism). I still believe in the Biblical norm, whether one calls that Subsidiarity or Sphere Sovereignty, and as such I will vote for a Party that still has a memory of such Biblical norms in their platform.

Rev. Bret L. McAtee
Worldview gadfly at Ironink.org
Submitted for publication for the Webzine “The Conservative Times.”
http://conservativetimes.org/?p=12508

I have come to the point in life where I believe those elected as President are merely empty suits doing the bidding of the international banking interest that operates behind the scenes pulling the strings of policy that emanates from every White House administration. As such, I have for some time not really taken these elections seriously since I believe the fix is in no matter which major party candidate wins.

If people want to understand the reasoning behind this conviction I would encourage them to consider the truth in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdu0N1-tvU&feature=related

Still, having admitted that, I want to take a peek at just a few excerpts from Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech.

“We are a nation of immigrants.”

And again later,

“When every new wave of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty, or knelt down and kissed the shores of freedom just ninety miles from Castro’s tyranny, these new Americans surely had many questions.”

The is the official myth that Americans have been propagandized into believing since the Immigration Act of 1965. This unofficial American creed supports both the ridiculous assertion that “diversity is our strength,” and the attempt to officially codify multiculturalism as the basis of our social order.

First of all, the statement is just not true. Despite thirty-plus years of mass immigration set off by the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 — an act dedicated to overturning the White, Anglo, Saxon, and marginally Christian essence of the American nation — the vast majority of Americans are still American-born children of American-born parents. The idea that “we are a nation of immigrants” is also historically false as scores of millions of Americans are neither immigrants nor had parents who were immigrants.

Also the idea that, “we are a nation of immigrants” flounders on the reality that a nation of immigrants would not and could not be a nation. Were we literally a nation of immigrants we would be a Hodge-Podge of heterogeneous peoples having nothing in common except living in the same geographic area. A nation of immigrants would mean a nation with nothing to unify the varied religions, ethnicity, and people group history of the multitudinous immigrant groupings inhabiting the nation. Of course, such a irregularity of a nation of immigrants, would give us not a nation, but a anti-nation. Such a anti-nation would be characterized by balkanization, tensions, and distrust between the various immigrant groups.

This is not to deny that immigration has been important to our country. It has. However, originally most of that immigration came from people groups that were already homogenous in significant ways with the host culture they would eventually be assimilated with. However, the kind of immigration that we have been looking at since 1965 promises to overthrow the essentially British culture and largely Christian underpinnings that have informed this nation. (See David Hackett Fisher’s “Albion’s Seed.”) What the mantra of “we are a nation of immigrants” is effectuating now is the work on the part of the State to dissolve the historic faith and culture by electing a new people. It shouldn’t be surprising that those who identify with the historic faith and culture do not like hearing the multicultural mantra that “we are a nation of immigrants.”

With that statement, Romney might also be signaling not only an appeal to the Hispanic vote that Republicans believe they so desperately need, but it also may be communicating that a President Romney would support some kind of amnesty program for the current 15 million illegal aliens currently present in these united States. That the Republican establishment desperately desires some kind of amnesty program is a certainty.

Elsewhere in his acceptance speech Romney said,

“I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed.”

I am fairly sure that this was placed in the text in order to counter Rush Limbaugh’s now famous statement, spoken shortly after Obama’s inauguration, “I hope he (Obama) fails.”

Limbaugh took incredible heat for that statement. I think we can agree with both Limbaugh and Romney here. Because Obama is a Marxist it was necessary for any Patriot to hope he failed. Who would want a Marxist leader to succeed in his plan to implement Marxism? We could also say that we wished Obama had succeeded in the sense that it would have been nice if his policies had been a success, even though everyone knew it advance that Marxism never succeeds except for the elite ruling class.

Romney went on speaking of his wife, Ann,

“I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine.”

This is a bone thrown to counter the Democrat accusation that Republicans are waging war on women. However, it is a falsity. A Mom’s job is not more important than a Dad’s job, just as a Dad’s job is not more important than a Mom’s job.

Romney went on and on supporting the idea of Feminism. He said he chose a female as his Lt. Governor. He said he chose a female chief of staff. He talked about all the female Republican governors. God speaks in Scripture that ruling women are a sign of being cursed (Isaiah 3:12).

Elsewhere Romney soft-pedaled his Mormonism,

“We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan; that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don’t remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.”

This is Romney’s way of saying that his Mormonism is nothing to be concerned about by Evangelicals and Catholics. Clarity requires me to insist that attending a Mormon Church is not the same as attending a Christian Church since Mormonism is a different religion.

Romney revealed what may very likely become a theme in the campaign,

T”he President hasn’t disappointed you because he wanted to. The President has disappointed America because he hasn’t led America in the right direction. He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business. Jobs to him are about government.”

This is the whole, “Obama is a nice guy but he was inexperienced and ill equipped to do the job as President” routine. I don’t buy that Obama is a nice guy. I don’t consider Marxists of any stripe in any position to be nice people. Obama has already revealed his fangs in the campaign by approving the add that connected Romney’s work at Bain Capital with the death of a man’s wife. Obama is more than incompetent. Obama is malevolent.

Now, I believe Romney to be every bit as malevolent but I believe he believes that he can’t win by attacking Obama as a socialist.

Romney said,

“And it means that we must rein in the skyrocketing cost of healthcare by repealing and replacing Obamacare.”

I’m all for repealing Obama-care. I get nervous when I hear Romney (the author of socialist Romney-care in Massachusetts) talks about replacing Obama-care. Replacing with what? A better “more efficient” socialist health care?

Finally we look at Romney saying,

“Every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran’s nuclear threat.

I get nervous at the thought of Romney and saber rattling with Iran. Why would I want to vote for someone who may very well get us even further in the slough of the Middle East?