It has been a very intense week in the news, to say the least. While Obama and Boehner battle it out for the soul of the United States in the latest round of the American “culture wars,” the Norwegian tragedy draws our attention to what is truly the next great global conflict, what some are calling World War IV. The complicated, often violent encounter between the “Judeo-Christian” West and Islam is causing European Countries to question their decades-long commitment to multiculturalism and to more thoughtfully consider what it means to be European, even while they abandon the Christian heritage of their continent. Although this identity crisis has not yet truly reached American shores, 9/11 (which was, by most accounts, the Pearl Harbor of World War IV) and its aftermath (most notably the battle over the so-called “ground-zero mosque”) demonstrate that we are not far behind.
And so it seems a very appropriate time to consider the following question: what is or would be a genuinely Christian response to a growing Muslim influence in the Western World? This question is made all the more urgent amidst revelations that the Norwegian assailant was a self-proclaimed Christian. Furthermore, while experts seem unable to offer a clear, non-partisan response to the question of whether Islam is, by nature, a peaceful or violent religion – whether, at its heart, it seeks tolerance or dominion, Christians need to be prepared to respond to either possibility. As Islamic influence grows, what does it mean to be and to live as a Christian?
Any answer to this question must begin with Jesus. As Paul Zahl writes, “all theology is Christology.” Anything we seek to know about God, about what He has done and the life to which He calls us, begins with the Word made flesh. And although we here at Mockingbird are not huge WWJDers, the fact remains that, whenever Jesus encountered violence either real or potential, his response was to heal, forgive, escape and/or suffer.
Thus, when, in Luke 4 the crowd at Nazareth tried to throw Jesus from a cliff for his hard words, he “walked right through them and went on his way.” When, in Matthew 8, a centurion, an agent of the occupying, oppressive force in Israel, comes to Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus does it and praises the man’s faith. In John 18, when Peter cuts off the ear of a man in the party that has come to arrest Jesus, Christ heals the man and tells Peter to put away his sword. And, of course, when Jesus is brought before a succession or tribunals and, eventually, to the cross to suffer and die amid the mocking cries of the crowd, He perfectly fulfils the prophecy of Isaiah, who sees a suffering
servant “oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
St. Paul, Jesus’ most faithful interpreter, writing to the Roman church in the midst of persecution, counsels submission, and as many arrests, imprisonments and beatings as he receives, never once advocates for violence of any kind. One also thinks of the Apostles in Acts 5, whom, after being arrested, flogged and released, are not consumed with anger and a thirst for revenge, but rather “left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”(!)
Put bluntly, the New Testament is deeply pacifist. And although some have responded more virulently to the question of how faithful people ought to respond to evil (most notably Augustine, in the early church, with his “Just War” theory and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who in the 20th century felt it his Christian duty to take part in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler), their case is more difficult to make based on the life of Jesus.
When one looks at the history of the early church, what is remarkable is the speed at which it grew, even in the midst of repeated, often brutal persecution. In fact, throughout history, the church seems to grow not so much in spite of persecution, but often because of it. As Tertullian said, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” Seen in this light, violence towards and marginalization of Christians should, perhaps, be welcomed (if not sought), rather than resisted, by those who would seek the spread of the Gospel. China seems an apt contemporary example.
It is also often true that the Gospel spreads through the subjugation of Christians. Not only were Paul and Silas’ prison guards converted in Acts 16, all of Ireland was converted through St. Patrick, whom, as a boy, was kidnapped and carried off into slavery by the then-pagan Irish.
Thus, seen through the lens of Jesus, Scripture and history, the place of the Christian in the West-meets-Islam culture war seems clear and consistent: love, healing, forgiveness, suffering, pacifism. In other words, the Way of the Cross. It may well be that we are living in the midst of World War IV, and it may also be that the West will lose this war, that the Europe and America of our children and our children’s children will be very different than it is today, but our response to this possibility, or eventuality, must be the response of Jesus, Paul, Tertullian, Patrick and countless other saints through the ages who suffered for the sake of the Gospel, and not of Anders Behring Breivik, who mistakenly believed it was his duty to kill for it.
Even so, we all fall on the mercy of Jesus, as we hope Breivik is, recognizing that we will never get this, or any question, “right”, and that our only hope is His grace in the midst of our sinful lives and fallen world.
COMMENTS
10 responses to “Norway and the Gospel: A Christian Response to World War IV”
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“St. Paul, Jesus’ most faithful interpreter”
An interesting phrase, to say the least. I guess it helps account for a lot about the theology of this blog.
Leaving that aside and addressing the more central theme in this post, I simply do not understand the jump all the way to pacifism from the brutal way in which people so often try to carry out their aims. We don’t have to be pacifists to believe that violently aggressive behavior is wrong. Personally, I think that most of the conflicts in which the US has actively engaged in during the past few decades–Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.–were wrong on moral grounds. But I’m not a pacifist; I simply don’t believe we ought to be aggressors in a battle for global domination.
Jesus willingly went to the cross rather than fight. Yet he also commanded his disciples to buy a sword (Luke 22:36) and he violently defended the temple against corruption (John 2). And unless you’re willing to throw out the entire Old Testament (and I confess sometimes I’d like to) you’re going to have to account for God’s commands to his people to fight. Or is Jesus God’s great “never mind”?
It’s funny you mention Bonhoeffer. In my mind, it’s World War II that always destroys the pacifist position. Bonhoeffer was a pacifist, until he saw that such a position was irresponsible in light of the evil that was Hitler. Just so, I view pacifism as ultimately irresponsible, even if it would be right in most cases.
Finally, I don’t think Christians ought to react to this with a stoic acceptance of the possible fall of Western civilization. The problem is not that Muslims are trying to take over. The problem is basically xenophobia, leading to a paranoia about immigration. This certainly goes for our country, as well. As Christians, we could be more focused on embracing the other, rather than viewing them as opponents and then deciding whether to be violent or pacifist. They are made in God’s image, after all.
Hey Jameson – just a quick note on Luke 22.36 … In Luke, the command to buy a sword comes during Luke’s Passion narrative is set in opposition to the sending out of his disciples in mission. While before they were told to carry nothing with them, now they are told to carry moneybags, knapsacks, cloaks and swords. Jesus actually encourages this to be done specifically so that it the Scripture might be fulfilled ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’ (22.37). Rather than an a sign of fidelity, the taking up of the sword is actually a mark of turning against Jesus and abandoning Jesus to his death.
I think you’re on to something though in your desire to avoid the sharp us-them dichotomies. It’s no good to be a pacifist if you still see them as an enemy. I would add that this, too, is a largely NT insight, though it can certainly fight grounds in portions of the OT.
for what it’s worth – michael horton says that Breivik is an “enlightenment fundamentalist”, not a christian.
http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2011/07/25/enlightenment-fundamentalist-slays-80-at-norwegian-summer-camp/
Nice article – as a traditional political conservative I’ve recently been trying to come to terms with the pacifist example of Christ and the early church. If you’re willing to see it, its pretty compelling on a personal level and as a church. I guess the many many centuries of domination by cultural Christianity has really warped our sense of identity. Sure the appointed authorities have the responsibility of wielding the sword, but its questionable if we ought to make ourselves a part of that. From what I understand Christians before Constantine did not actively participate in that function. Since Constantine the role of church and state has been hopelessly mixed and I wonder if we’ll ever really get the two properly separated again.
Henry –
Thanks so much for your response. I completely agree that the NT’s bent towards pacifism is really tough, especially when you’ve got a wife and kids. There’s also obviously a need for social order (what Luther would’ve called “First Use of the Law”), which gets difficult when Christians find themselves in those positions, which they weren’t in the 1st century. Interestingly (and I don’t agree with this), Tertullian wouldn’t even baptize soldiers(!), but he also went a little nuts at the end of his life. In any event, I have tremendous respect for Christian soldiers and law enforcement officials. That’s gotta be a tough job.
Jameson –
Thanks so much for your response, I will have to think a bit more on the passages you mentioned, but I do find Todd’s words very helpful.
Regarding the us/them dichotomy, I could not agree more! The point I was trying to make (perhaps not as well as I could have) is that it doesn’t matter whether Muslims, or anyone, come in peace or in violence, that our call as Christians is to respond in the same way: embracing the other, as you so wonderfully wrote, even as Christ embraces us, whether we be friend or (more usually) foe. In some instances, this embrace will be reciprocated, in others it will not, but our call to love as He loves us does not waver.
Lastly, let me throw in one more potentially controversial statement: the Christian life is, in my opinion, often a call to irresponsible living, i.e. a life lived in such full faith of God’s goodness and provision that ordinary considerations about “responsibility”, “stewardship”, etc., go utterly out the window.
Waddya think?
R-J –
I think you’re right on. “Being responsible” is usually nothing but the first step to casuistry. “Sell all your possessions, give the proceeds to the poor and follow me” is a commandment that it would certainly be irresponsible of family men like you and I to follow, yet it nonetheless IS the commandment. That we don’t only reminds us that we are selfish sinners in need of the saving grace of Christ.
“God calls us to turn the other cheek, but not to be doormats” is a rejoinder I’ve heard time and again. It would have been irresponsible for the world to turn the other cheek to Hitler. But, then again, we are talking AS IF MORAL ACTION IS POSSIBLE. It isn’t. We are no more righteous in our responsible opposition to evil than we are in our turning the other cheek to more minor evils.
R-J, regarding your controversial statement, it does seem odd that you would throw out “stewardship,” given the biblical endorsement of that virtue. In any case, I know that often “responsibility” quickly turns into hubris and paternalism, but I think at its core responsibility is simply the desire not to sit idly by and watch the innocent suffer.
I think a lot of us want to interpret Jesus from the point of view of one of his first century disciples, because that seems like the most “faithful” reading of the text. In particular, we want to turn back the clock to when Christianity hadn’t shaped Western civilization and we had no power to shape civic life. This would make it easier to see the logic of Jesus’ commands, even if it didn’t make them easy to follow. But frankly, we just don’t have that privilege. We have to decide what to do with the power we do actually have. We cannot run away from it, we cannot deny it, we cannot transcend it. We may prefer to have lived in another time and have different responsibilities, but that is not something we get to decide.
As for Nick’s comment, I figured this discussion would go that direction sooner or later (hence the “Saint Paul” comment in my original reply). Just because nothing we do will make us perfectly righteous doesn’t mean some actions aren’t any wiser than others. If you really believed God were calling you to sell all your possessions, you would do it. But you don’t believe that, so you don’t. And I’m glad you don’t, because I really think if you did it would be based on a misreading of one story in the gospels. You may call this “self-justification.” I call it caring about the welfare of families whose husbands might get crazy ideas out of Scripture. I’m really not concerned with being perfect, here (see Ecclesiastes 7). I’m just concerned with saying one thing is better than another, because in the world we live in, this is both a loving and wise thing to do, especially when people live in fear and confusion.
And I maintain that pacifism is better than imperialism and crusades, but better still is the willingness to fight evil when necessary to defend the innocent.
RJ – I’m a bit off the pace here – hopefully you’ll get to read this:
You are spot on about Luther’s first use of the Law.
Christians are called to wear two hats. We do not fuse the Law and the Gospel. They each in turn have ABSOLUTE dominion over the flesh (the Law) and the spirit (the Gospel). Christian pacifists are fusing the two, which is the mistake that the scholastics and neo-scholastics make…
Luther on the threat of the Ottoman’s on the Holy Roman Empire said that we must not fight a war of Religion, but we should fight a war of national defence…
I hope you are well brother