by andrew chase-ziolek

Managing Editor

Last week, two articles were published in Chimes dissenting from my position of Christian pacifism [Perspectives, Oct. 5]. A number of concerns were brought up which I do feel need to be addressed.

Ben Talsma put a number of arguments on the table. His most weighty argument came from the issues that pacifists intrinsically have between the Old and New Testaments. This is still an object of tension for me. However, because I think that the example set by the early Church provides the most legitimate precedent (or perhaps I should say that our modern context is more similar to that of the early church than to the exiled Israelites, thus making their example more relevant), I see the process of harmonization as a legitimate exercise.

A number of things could be said. A simple dispensationalism would be the most simple route: God ordains different actions for different times. Talsma notes ``if you try to differentiate between Old and New testament law, you make the morality of an action contingent on the time at which it occurred - a circumstance.'' Yet this is not a problem for an Augustinian model of morality and a general openness view (or even a crippled openness view, whereby the only changes that happen are at creation, fall and redemption), where morals exist in the mind of God. Ultimately, Jesus' suffering leads to the satisfaction of God's requirement for immediate justice, thus seriously changing the dynamics of God's will. Models of God's mind being changed are plentiful in the Old Testament - if we take some kind of Augustinian model of morality, we would be able to hold this position without too much cognitive dissonance.

But the question assumes that the ability of the ancient Israelis to have war allows us to do the same. They did so with a direct dictate from God, something which is lacking now. All lives belong to God, and to take them without his direct order (which I postulate he has ceased giving) is to take what is his. Will man rob God? Or worse, do we fear that perhaps God is not able to perform justice (and so we'll just help him out a little bit?) This is where Talsma's response seemed particularly dense. My question still stands: How is McCain's statement defensible? He claims to be able to judge a person's life prior to God, regardless of God's judgment. Is this anything but heresy?

Moreover, the violent acts of God in the Old Testament are exaggerated by Talsma in a manner reminiscent of Marcion. Every commentator that I've read on Ecclesiastes 3 (Keil & Deitzlich, Longman III, Murphy) has argued that the content is descriptive, not prescriptive. It would be a massive error to take as prescriptive what is the description of one of the most pessimistic books in the Bible.

Talsma's quotation of Jeremiah 50 is problematic. Given that the ``scholars have remarked on the anonymity of the enemy'' (McKane, 1272), and the divergences between Jeremiah 50:21 and Jeremiah 27-29, Jeremiah 39-40 (in terms of the time of the destruction of Babylon), a number of other interpretative options may be preferable, especially because this belongs to the oracular genre, which invites either present near-future fulfillment, or eschatological fulfillment. I do not deny the existence of passages in the OT which stand against my position, nor do I claim to be entirely comfortable with my solution. Yet, given a unified Christian theology I find it much more satisfying than the pottage of Just War theory.

My own hermeneutical reservations do not apply to the utilitarian aspects of war (which unfortunately seems to persuade more people.) It should be noted that Talsma's example of Japan fell short on many fronts. First, he fails to note the strong socialist and Christian pacifist movements in Japan. Moreover, he failed to note that afterwards Japan became involved in another war, where it was forced to align itself (or perceived itself to be in that position) with the United States.

However, Talsma's article was not entirely disagreeable, even if it was only when he was rephrasing what I had originally said. I agree that war has the tendency to beget violence (and I meant no more than that.) I think that he, to a large extent, has failed to realize the epistemic problem that this creates. If war has the tendency to beget violence, and we have no reliable way of predicting whether a war will beget violence or not (``Hey let's put troops into Somalia. It'll just be a quick peace-keeping mission''), then from a utilitarian perspective going to war makes little sense. Just War has no good prognosticators.

Since utilitarianism relies on predicting the ends (for they determine the greatest good), things like war which are inherently less predictable than other actions require significantly more warrant than simply an assurance that not causing more violence is possible, especially given the incredible cost, both in monetary terms and in terms of human life.

I also think that Talsma fundamentally misunderstands my reference to Germany, largely through the polarization of options. He sees a refusal to go to war as complicity in the murder of the Jews. I wonder if he would see our refusal to fight Russia (perhaps simply assassinate Stalin) during the great purges as complicity in the murder of millions of Soviets? How is the lack of military action considered complicity? My point, which both Talsma and Bulthuis simply brush off, is that we need to be creative in our application of power. Alternate history is always tenuous, yet I can (and already have) put foreword a number of viable alternatives to war. That none of them have a historical precedent simply shows that humans are prone to accepting war too easily. In a world that is quickly globalizing, we have increased options as to how we influence peoples and countries. Let us use these.

Talsma also states that pacifism must have a last resort. Yet he gives no justification for this, save that the terrorists may not stop attacking us. Perhaps he feels that as a pacifist I feel that any police activity is illegitimate (I don't); he fails to take that into account. But even if 5,000 more deaths were to occur, I would not think that cause for our military intervention. Like Aristotle, I draw a line between being the doer of an action and the recipient.

Bulthuis' article has similar problems. He argues that ``The reason [Jesus] remained on the cross was not that he was morally against responding to attacks. He had to remain on the cross in order to fully redeem our sins.'' Yet any student who has taken Religion 201 (now 131) knows that the number of metaphors for the crucifixion are without end (take, for example, the very non-transactional Christus Victor.) The language of the servant song in Isaiah 53:8 seems to set an example of personal pacifism: ``He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.'' The example given by Christ is certainly some kind of pacisim, if not political. I can understand if Bulthuis does not consider this sufficient warrant (or even admissible evidence) for policial pacifism, but to completely write it off is to impose a trashy evangelical theology over what has been traditionally a much richer tapestry.

Moreover, Bulthuis argues that it is improper to pull any kind of sociopolitical message from the acts of Jesus and Paul, as they were not concerned with the political situation in any way. He argues that both brought the gospel with no intent of changing the political situation. Yet, in an age when most of the citizens were disenfranchised (including both Jesus, and to a lesser extent Paul), spreading the gospel was the best way of changing political policy. To deny this is to deny the central insight of Calvin and Kuyper.

He also argues that not going to war can be a failure to love your neighbor. Yet who is our neighbor? Jesus taught us that our neighbor was the one who we most despised. In any war, even when we have groups of people who are legitimately being oppressed by others, we ultimately are neighborly to at least one of them. Social justice through war is simply not creative enough.