Just War: Venezuela

              Upon waking up to news about our attack on Venezuela, images played on repeat of massive explosions and burnt out Venezuelan military vehicles, and reports of their president and first lady, the Maduros, capture… with militias gathering up for reprisals and other South American countries activating their militaries, I went back and looked at previous pastoral letters I’ve written, one from when it looked like President Obama was about to invade Syria because they used chemical weapons, and another after the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani in the first Trump Administration.

              I started those letters 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, our present moment is a little different from the two previous times I responded with pastoral letters, as there is a quasi-policing veneer to last night’s attacks, the situation has been escalating for months, and there is a sense (incorrect I believe) that what happened last night ends things. Our killing of Soleimani didn’t stop attacks on US soldiers in the Middle East or our bombing of Iran a few years later. Likewise, our inaction in Syria festered for a decade until Assad was deposed by his own people. As someone who studied the history of war as an undergraduate, I would point to that truism that every soldier can quote by van Moltke, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Engaging in battle has a force to it, choosing to fight innately radicalizes the goals of those who go to war—if you give a general a cookie, he’ll keep the tanks moving. Additionally, war tends to reshape national identities in unexpected ways.

              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 20^th and 21^st 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 two, Kyrie Eleison.

Sermon: Ephesians Christmas

 

            “How would things be different, if Jesus had never been born?” he asked us.

            Unfortunately, he asked Dayna, Micah, Billy, and me
—I don’t know if there were 4 kids in all of Wyoming more in their heads than us.
We proceeded to:
-imagine western civilization without a Christian influence,
-sketch out where rocketry and astronomy might have been at, without the Roman Catholic Church’s condemnation of Galileo,
-considered the forces of colonization of the Americas without the religious missionary zeal involved…
…and on and on…
that poor Sunday School Teacher…
he just wanted us to say without Christmas we wouldn’t be saved…

            Here in Ephesians,
in this packed 200-word sentence of Paul’s
(in English we break it down into 6 sentences… but it’s actually one big one)
—Paul gives an equally heady, but decidedly more faithful, sort of witness. He describes what it means to be In Christ.
He explains the why of Jesus Christ
—the Why of Christmas
—he came among us
—as John talks about today,
he was born among us,
that we might be born of God.
He is in us, that we might be found in him.

The why of Christmas,
the reason Jesus being born makes a difference
—is that because of Christmas we are in Christ.

Let us pray

 

            9 times in a single sentence, Paul describes what it is like to be In Christ. But, to get there I think it is worth considering each one’s opposite
—after all if Christmas is about being saved,
we obviously must be saved FROM something,
to be saved FOR something.

 

            When we are outside of Christ, it is like we’re cursed
—imagine that, a world cursed, a world where we don’t want the best for each other,
where even our best efforts, our most holy and righteous acts
—are awful, are failings and condemnation.

            Outside of Christ we are rejected…
like a dog shooed away from a taco truck,
or a fugitive
—chased for the whole of our life,
never able to relax,
always looking over our shoulder.

            Outside of Christ, we are orphaned,
like a character in a Dickens novel,
or the backstory of some superhero or another
—the tragedy that at our most vulnerable, the person who would be expected to care for us, is dead.

            Outside of Christ, we are impoverishment.
A fallen Victorian estate,
a scammer getting hold of the family bank account while away on vacation,
a major medical bill not covered by insurance
—losing everything.

            Outside of Christ, we are kidnapped
—held for ransom…
and the clock runs out,
no one comes for us.
We start to ask the frightening questions like:
“How long will our captors keep feeding us? What’ll they do if no one comes?”

            Outside of Christ is obscurity and ignorance.
We’re thrown into a situation without an explanation,
blindfolded, barefoot, spun around,
and then instead of being pointed toward a piñata or given a tail to pin on the donkey,
told to watch out for the broken glass, it’s everywhere.

            Outside of Christ we’re disinherited
—losing status, told implicitly or explicitly, “you are not my child. You aren’t part of my family.”
            Outside of Christ are broken promises
—being lied to,
buying a ticket for the 8:15am train, and 8:15 has come and gone, and come back round again.

            Outside of Christ it is a Caviat Empor world, buyer beware
—it is all on you,
you’re ripe for the picking,
every deal is a trick,
every sale is final.

Cursed, rejected, orphaned, impoverished, kidnapped, obscured, disinherited, lied to, untrustworthy…
I know—that all sounds a little dire,
especially in the season of Christmas,
but hopefully these long shadows, help us to see what it means to be In Christ,
it helps us to crack open the why of Christmas
—it’s meaning here in Ephesians.

            In Christ we are: blessed, chosen, adopted, gifted, redeemed, informed, entrusted, promised, and sealed.

            In Christ God’s good plan for all the earth is revealed.
God’s plan to right the whole world
—save his beloved Creation
—is most clearly seen in Christian Unity.
We witness to God’s work in the world the best, when we love each other!

            In Christ we find a sibling—a brother,
adopted into God’s family. That’s the baptismal promise after all, right?
—hey you, you’re a Child of God now, welcome to the family!

In Christ we are redeemed
—a relative sees us captured and comes along and frees us,
buying us out of captivity,
out of slavery,
rescued from the bonds that hold us,
by our kin who loves us.

In Christ there is blessing and life.
Kindness, goodness, mercy, is all poured out like an overabundance of oil,
given to us freely, unmerited grace
—we did nothing and receive everything! How can that be? Thanks be to God!

 

“How would things be different if Jesus had never been born?”

We would be outsiders, but we have been made insiders.
Christmas is a revelation.
Christmas is a homecoming.
Christmas is a rescue mission.
Christmas is mercy all the way through!

Amen.

3 Bipartisan Policies & more

In a recent post I offered 6 policies for Democrats to run on in 2026 that I think would be good for them electorally, but also good for the country. I followed it up with 6 policies for Republicans; some of them might fit into Trump’s bailiwick and others that could be directions for a post-Trump GOP. What follows is where those policies could overlap.

The Throw the Bums Out Bill:

Concerns around corruption, politicians aging, and there being little to no churn in government, are everywhere. This goes beyond party; I think everyone can agree that politicians shouldn’t be bribed, they should be cognizant of their behaviors and choices, and they should know when to quit. A solution for this would be to require federal politicians to put investments in blind trusts, a gifts regime similar to federal employees, and term limits. I like my 8, 10, 12, 14 scheme, but I’m sure there are other rational ratios out there.

Housing for America

I was interested to learn that Vivek Ramaswamy recently came out in favor of Ezra Klein's Abundance agenda. His only objection was that the description was too “democrat coded.” (Imagine that, the two parties actually agree on one of the biggest issues facing our country, they just don’t like each other’s language… where are our English Majors?) So that’s super interesting for the state of Ohio, where Ramaswamy intends to be the next governor. It is also interesting for establishing some sort of bipartisan consensus around housing policy.

What do you suppose each side getting half a loaf around housing policy might look like? Some serious public investment in building coupled with incentives to regulate “more like Texas than California” to lift up Klein’s overworn phrase. Maybe encourage some local buy in with county architecture prizes named after an Ayn Rand character? (What up and coming architect wouldn’t want to put “Hunterdon County HRAI Awarded Architect” on their resume?)

Artificial Intelligence Regulation, Compensation, and Treaties

              This is one of those things where there needs to be some consensus. As a country, what do we think AI ought to be for? Is it to eliminate all entry-level white-collar jobs? Is it for intellectual property theft by proxy? Is it a coding tool? Is it a union busting device? Is it an educational tool? Is it a digital parent or romantic partner? Is it a taxi driver? Is it a medical diagnostic tool? Is it an electronic day trader? Is it a replacement for human relationships writ large? Is it a digital slave? Is it a replacement for humans? Is it a replacement for CEOs? Is it a steroid for economic growth? Is it a dead man’s switch for nuclear weapons? Are we trying to create an electronic god? Is it clippy? What exactly are we planning to do with AI?

I understand Artificial Intelligence can be a digital Swiss Army Knife, but if someone stabbed someone else to death with such a knife, we’d still call it murder—even if they use the corkscrew. So, what are the no-gos for this tool/person/set of code? We can regulate how AI develops. In fact, we can push for the development of a global consensus about what this tool is for. We can also mitigate the damage it causes in the lives of those it displaces.

So, for example, if 20% of the people younger than me will be unable to have a job on account of AI… we should maybe have a plan for that.

If a good number of people who are directly involved with AI are sending up alarming warnings about AI developing interests that diverge from humanity, ways of communicating beyond human understanding, and means of “escaping” their current digital habitats… perhaps a bit of caution is in order.

If AI is sucking up water and power resources to such an extent that it is noticeable on everyone’s electric bills and there is talk of AI droughts… maybe we name no-go boundaries for resource use.

One of my favorite tools is a concrete framing of Aristotelian Ethics: Glasses, Hammer, and Map. Where are we? What tools do we have? Where are we going? As a society and as a planet we need to answer those types of questions about AI. There should be a bipartisan consensus to ask those questions broadly and act on our eventual answers. My assumption is that after a robust conversation about AI we would end up: regulating AI nationally, compensating and retraining folks who are especially adversely affected by AI, and push for global treaties around AI.

Other Points of Convergence

              Thinking aloud about the other potential places where partisanship could take a back-seat there seem to be three areas of convergence. It seems like it is in the best interest of the GOP to stabilize the Affordable Care Act—otherwise they’ll take the blame for the Big Beautiful Bill’s contribution to the problem. Who knows, once they start working on it they might come up with a long-term fix. There may still be a bipartisan consensus around arming Ukraine and preparing weapon systems for a direct confrontation with China. There may still be room for an immigration deal, it could be an off-ramp for the current horrific deportation regime.

Points of Divergence

              I imagine my Cap & Trade suggestion is not where the GOP is at, climate change denialism is still prevalent in the Republican Party. Strengthening public colleges, even in a federalized way, and empowering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also seem out of reach.

Conclusion

              With a little creativity the US Government could: reform our federal political system, address housing shortages, and shape the future of AI, instead of being shaped by it. If we were really brave and thoughtful, we could also make healthcare affordable, provide for the defense of our allies and deterrence of our competitors, and make our immigration system logical for immigration in the 2020s and beyond.