Upon hearing about the assassination of the Iranian
General Soleimani and the talk of tit-for-tat reprisals from both our president
and the leader of Iran, I went back and looked at the pastoral letter I wrote
to you all when it looked like President Obama was about to invade Syria
because they used chemical weapons. I hope and pray this letter is as
unnecessary as that one turned out to be, that peace will eclipse all
intentions toward war.
I
started that letter with words that loom large in my heart today as well. Kyrie
Eleison—Lord have mercy.
Kyrie
Eleison… This is how we start our opening prayer to God in worship—the
start of the prayer, in which we pray for peace from above and for our
salvation—peace for the whole world.
And
I would ask that you take a moment to pray this prayer from our Hymnal:
“Gracious God, grant
peace among nations. Cleanse from our own hearts the seeds of strife: greed and
envy, harsh misunderstandings and ill will, fear and desire for revenge. Make
us quick to welcome ventures in cooperation among the peoples of the world, so
that there may be woven the fabric of a common good too strong to be torn by
the evil hands of war. In the time of opportunity, make us be diligent; and in
the time of peril, let not our courage fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.”
Now,
I recognize the current moment we find ourselves in is different than the one
we were in 6 years ago with Syria. In this case we killed a general who, during
the second Iraq War, snuck rockets into Iraq that could pierce up-armored
military vehicles, which killed hundreds of US soldiers. Consequently we are worried
about blowback—that US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan will be targeted and
that, if things swing out of control, we’ll be re-invading Iraq to secure a
place from which to invade Iran.
And
our faith has something to say about such things. For two thousand years we
Christians have been struggling with being faithful in the world as it is, in
situations of persecution, famine, feast, might, and war. And those struggles
have given us a rich tradition of thought and action, something much deeper
than the knee-jerk reactions of TV pundits and political intellectuals.
In
the early days of the Church, Christians were known for being pacifists. In
fact, the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Mennonites still are pacifists, they
see refusing to go to war as a witness to the world that the Prince of Peace,
Jesus Christ, reigns. Other Christians, such as us Lutherans, follow a
tradition that includes Just War Theory, “which requires certain conditions to
be met before the use of military force is considered morally right.
These principles are:
1.
A just war can
only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted
before the use of force can be justified.
2.
A war is just
only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be
served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an
authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem
legitimate.
3.
A just war can
only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against
an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice
of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be
fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just
war is to redress the injury.
4.
A war can only be
just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury
incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
5.
The ultimate goal
of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace
established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have
prevailed if the war had not been fought.
6.
The violence used
in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited
from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing
the injury suffered.
7.
The weapons used
in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are
never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid
killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are
unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.”
Additionally,
this Church, the ELCA, in 1995, created a document “For Peace in God’s World” which particularized our understanding of Just
War Theory to the challenges of the 20th and 21st century.
Here are a few stand out statements:
“Wars,
both between and within states, represent a horrendous failure of politics. The
evil of war is especially evident in the number of children and other
noncombatants who suffer and die.”
“Helping
the neighbor in need may require protecting innocent people from injustice and
aggression. While we support the use of nonviolent measures, there may be no
other way to offer protection in some circumstances than by restraining
forcibly those harming the innocent. We do not, then--for the sake of the
neighbor--rule out possible support for the use of military force. We must
determine in particular circumstances whether or not military action is the
lesser evil.”
“From
the posture of the just/unjust war tradition, the aim of all politics is peace.
Any political activity that involves coercion should be held accountable to
just/unjust war principles. They are important for evaluating movements,
sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, trade policies to reward or punish, and other
coercive but nonviolent measures.”
And
finally, and most solemn, "Any decision for war must be a mournful
one."
And
so, I conclude this letter as I did the last one, Kyrie Eleison.
