Ethics of War

The Ethics of War

This is one question where churches seem to espouse whatever is the flavour of the month in their base culture. There are of course a host of reasons both sociological and spiritual why this is so, but the problem for me at this point is what their apparently their negotiable ethics says about the Bible as a source of moral teaching.

Whatever position churches have at a particular time they generally claim vociferously that this is what the Bible teaches. That phenomenon is a problem when I want to establish the Bible as a keyhole to glimpse the absolute standard of morals!

Take the topic of the ethics of war. The opposite extremes of the bloodthirsty mediaeval church and the pacifist Quakers I will leave to one side for the moment. I want to take as an example modern and mainstream church attitudes.

My first parish included a little rural town called Lang Lang. There was a photo in the church vestry that I found both haunting and inspiring. It was of the minister of that church immediately after the First World War.

He had, like so many young men at that time, gone to the war. In his case as a Chaplain. He served in the trenches in France and Belgium. Gas was used as a weapon extensively, particularly chlorine gas – cheap easily produced but deadly, and often inflicting a very painful and lingering death. One time this chaplain went out with stretcher bearers to rescue wounded soldiers. During this time there was a chlorine gas attack. The chaplain, like all the troops had been issued with a gas mask and put it on. Then he found one of the wounded did not have a gas mask and taking his own one off he put it on the wounded man.

His lungs were so damaged by the gas that he was chronically ill during his time as minister at Lang Lang, and he died within a few years. What an incredible example of self-sacrificing Christian love; but what an awful thing the war was.

My point is that here was one (there were of course countless others) person who was devout, Christian, and of strong and commendable moral courage who believed it was right to go to war. This was also I believe the almost universal position of the mainstream denominations at that time

Let me come forward in time to an illustration of the beliefs of another minister this time in conflict with those of his denomination in the late 1960's.

The year was 1981. I was a young and keen curate and my vicar had let me take the funeral of an old lady I had been visiting in the local nursing home. A man introduced himself as the lady's son, he lived in another state and had come some distance for the funeral. After the service we got talking and this was the story he told:

He had been a young Presbyterian minister during the time of the Vietnam War. At one of their church's synods he had made a speech criticising the Australian government for introducing conscription and sending troops to fight alongside the Americans in this war.

During one of the breaks in the synod session a very senior minister confronted him, and poking him in the chest with a finger said: “Remember this day! This is the day your career in the Presbyterian Church ended!”

The man at the funeral, now much older looked wistfully past me into the distance and said: “and it was”.

So as late as 1960's it was an anathema to speak against a war in the Presbyterian church. As I recall, it would at least have been “unwelcome” in many other denominations. (A notable exception was high profile Methodist minister and director of the Wesley Mission in Sydney The Rev'd Dr. Sir Alan Walker who was a very outspoken critic of the war.)

Come forward just a few decades. The Anglican Church of which I am a member is now endemically anti-war. I suspect this is part of a swing to “Social Progressive” politics on the part of the people concerned. Hence it is still patchy, many are of this persuasion, some are not. However it has certainly been evident that a vocal bloc are anti-war and some are straight out anti-military – even to the extent of vilifying members of the clergy who are chaplains to the armed services. It is also a fact that very senior church people have criticised the Australian government for sending troops to fight in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In so short a space of time what the church expounds as “right” has reversed. I think that this is only one instance of a much more extensive problem: the chameleon ethical face of the church.

I think it happens when people's ideas and ideals come not (as they say – and quite likely themselves suppose) from the Bible but from political beliefs or cultural assumptions. These sources are (perhaps unconsciously) held more sacred than the Bible by the people concerned. The result is that the Bible is used (or misused) only to provide a legitimation for these already held beliefs rather than in its proper role to critique and mould them.

I am still struggling with how this can be overcome in order to utilise the ethical precepts of the Bible. One idea I am testing is that Aristotle holds the key. One of his cameos is of the complete man (Yes even Aristotle was a man of his times and thought to be complete one had to be male, Greek and a free citizen) We do not agree with him on that! However his ideal person was so imbued with moral sense that they not only did the right thing at all times but did so without internal struggle. No hand wringing or 'agonising over decisions' for them! They knew the right and they did it, whatever the cost.

I am toying with the idea that maybe this how the Bible should in large part work. That it can, under God, transform people into that sort of ideal condition that Aristotle glimpsed. Such people have their moral sense grounded on the absolute moral standard. Being build on this secure foundation their minds can work out solutions to ethical problems. On the other hand people who are dominated by what Biblical writers describe as our fallen human nature and the desires and values of “this world” will continue to see and use the Bible as a support for what they already want the answer to be, not as a source of inspiration!

But for the next few posts I will try to find what the Bible actually says about this moral issue. More of that next week!