My good friend Marty Martin wrote me an in-depth response to my posting about Ron Sider where I reacted to Sider's thoughts about the issue of whether evangelical Christians are consistently pro-life. Marty's musings were long enough that it seemed beyond what he could reasonably post as a comment so he sent it to me via email. I told him I would put it on my blog as a new posting -- that he could be my first "guest" blogger!
Marty has a strong military background being a graduate of the Air Force Academy (1970). But his military roots are much deeper since many of his family members and in-laws and other relatives going back for three or four generations are graduates of West Point or Annapolis and have long/career military backgrounds. Marty was raised Catholic but is currently a pastor at an Evangelical Presbyterian church. He got his theological training at Covenant Theological Seminary (1982). He also recently spent two years in Congo with Food for the Hungry and continues to be involved with that organization.
I thought it was important for you to have some background information because Marty spends quite a bit of time talking about U. S. involvement in various wars as well as about hunger and about the way Catholics have approached various "life" issues. He does so, not only as someone with a wealth of experience in all these areas, but as someone with formal theological training and with a strong commitment to Evangelicalism. He is a smart man and his friendship is a great blessing.
Having said all of these wonderful (and true) things about him and his credentials, I'll also note that I largely disagree with what he has written on this topic! I'll also not that this will not come as any surprise to Marty.
Marty and I frequently disagree about things political (and occasionally disagree about things theological). I'm working on a response to many of the issues raised in his essay but Christmas and family and other good things have intervened recently. In the meantime, I thought it would be good to give you his observations now (without comment) so that others could agree/disagree as the spirit leads. Here are Marty's comments -- enjoy:
From Marty Martin:
The Roman Catholic Church has long advocated a consistent pro-life ethic that has been described by the "seamless garment" metaphor (a "knitting together" of all sanctity of life issues into one “fabric,” into one consistent ethic). This, to me, is the best theological work that has been done on this very difficult class of issues. The Roman Catholic Church, despite sordid chapters in its history (Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, et al, have similar sordid chapters in their history), has the advantage of being worldwide and not attached to any particular nation or government (some of its worst chapters were written when it did so align itself). This does provide an element of objectivity that a partisan of one particular country or government or economic system can rarely achieve. It is too simple to say that, because war presents too difficult a set of circumstances for us to achieve consensus on, we can leave it out of our pro-life discussions and get back to the one issue (abortion) that conservative Christians agree upon.
Your argument about not applying Christian values to the body politic (e.g., pacifism, non-violence, killing of innocents in war) is exactly the argument that proponents of our current abortion policy apply to that issue. You say that there is no choosing between the lesser of two evils in the case of abortion. Declaring it to be so doesn’t necessarily make it so. The whole point of the argument from the side of the proponents of our current policy is that the “evil” of restricting a woman from determining what is going on inside her body is greater than any evil that might be attached to the aborting. I think you know that I disagree with that line of thinking and have written and spoken against our “abortion on demand” policies for more than 25 years.
Official Roman Catholic teaching and substantial Protestant thinking (e.g., Paul Ramsey and many others) has long recognized the legitimacy of the “just war.” However, this is a two-edged sword (so to speak). Augustine was one of the early framers of this doctrine that subsequently has been carefully, prayerfully developed over the centuries. It limits the circumstances under which wars may be undertaken and it limits the ways and means by which war may be conducted. It speaks to a people (the Church) who have a higher responsibility than their responsibility to their individual countries. It calls upon the church and individual Christians to do the hard work of grappling with whether their country/government is undertaking or has undertaken a “just war” and requires, from a sanctity of life standpoint, that they not participate and should oppose such wars if they do not meet the hard-to-meet restrictions the just war doctrine places on war-making. The whole point of this is that the “collateral damage” (the loss of innocent lives) in an unjust war is every bit as heinous as the aborting of innocents. When we Christians will not even acknowledge that there is a serious issue here, even though our history and some of the best Christian theology says otherwise, then what we have to say about abortion doesn’t ring true to an audience that readily recognizes our own inconsistency. Ignorance of the history and content of the just war doctrine in the Christian Church today is, to me, frightful.
One’s point of departure has a lot to do with one’s conclusions in this tough discussion. An interesting case in point is the dropping of the atom bombs in World War II. Apart from the question of whether WWII was a just war (there is largely universal consensus that it was and I certainly believe it was), not everything undertaken during that war was necessarily just. If one looks at this from the perspective of worldwide Christian missions it looks different from the picture seen by one who espouses an ethic of “the end justifies the means.” Nagasaki was the center of Christianity in Japan. The vast majority of Japan’s Christian population died in that bombing. Hundreds of years of Christian missionary efforts went up in smoke, as did thousands and thousands of totally innocent people. Just war doctrine calls for proportionality of response and discrimination between combatants and non-combatants. Here though, the decision was made to employ a tactic that greatly escalated the kind and level of violence and, by its very nature, ruled out discrimination. According to a consistent pro-life ethic that weaves all of the life issues together, could not one say that any responsibility America bears for the aborting of innocents it also bears for this?
Closer historically, it is also worth pointing out that Christian just war doctrine prohibits pre-emptive wars, especially when the other tenets of the doctrine have not been rigorously applied. Key tenets include the necessity of pursuing (not just “considering”) all other mechanisms for solving the issues before resorting to violence. Saddam was a liar and a thug, but when we accused him of having weapons of mass destruction and he denied it, we were the ones who were wrong. Though there was a mechanism in place and in process to determine whether they were there, he was declared guilty and punishment was meted out. The problem is that he wasn’t the only one who bore the pain of the punishment.
In the summer of 2003, 14,000+ people died in France during a heat wave, Paris being maximally impacted. Many of the French utility workers and healthcare community were on vacation. The temperature rose to 104 degrees f and many of those who died were elderly. At that time, the population of Baghdad was 2 to 3 times the population of Paris and the sustained temperature was 10 degrees hotter. Unlike Paris, in Baghdad the infrastructure was largely destroyed during the “shock and awe” bombing of the city and for a sustained period of time (spring through summer) there was no electricity and there was no water. Additionally, there was very little medical care available to the civilian population. It is always the most vulnerable, the very young and the very old, who are most affected. How many non-combatants do you think died in Baghdad during this period of time? I can’t tell you because no statistics were kept or available. Do you think there will ever be a rigorous attempt made to reconstruct the statistics or answer the question? Do you think these deaths would have occurred anyway? Saddam was a terrible guy, but it would take an amazing sleight of hand to hold him responsible for these deaths. If America denies responsibility for them, who is? God?
Mike, you know that I am a veteran and that I served our country proudly and honorably. I am not a pacifist, but I am an adherent of the just war doctrine and attempts to make it conform to any war a US government may decide to undertake or any action that we might take in an otherwise just war is, in my estimation, not faithful to the gospel. When we say that now the stakes are so high that we cannot afford to live by principles developed long ago from the Scriptures, we are, in an albeit subtle and sophisticated way, saying that the end justifies the means. It may be a practical ethic, but it is not a Christian ethic.
While we are on the subject of inconsistency in life issues, I am concerned that the conservative Christian community is far less concerned about the 23,000 daily deaths due to hunger related causes throughout the world than it is about the abortion issue in the US. Speech like this always seems to sound like a minimization of the abortion issue. I do not think it is. What I do think is that our constant sounding off about that issue while minimizing or dismissing other life issues as irrelevant or too difficult to conclude makes us appear as one-dimensional as I believe we are being. This does, I believe, seriously compromise our witness and brings damage to the cause of Christ.
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THE JUST WAR DOCTRINE
The Catechism of the [Roman] Catholic Church, para. 2309 succinctly outlines that church's position:
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The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
--the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
--all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
--there must be serious prospects of success;
--the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
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Obviously, in order to have a "just war," there must be an aggressor. One may not go to war simply to satisfy territorial aspirations, accumulate wealth, or expand one's influence. In fact, a nation which went to war for such reasons could legitimately be branded the "aggressor." The actions of the aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain. Everyone's favorite example is Hitler who attempted to dominate the entire world and to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, the infirm, and homosexuals (to name a few). But how about others whose professed intention was to destroy a nation or a people (Arabs vs. Israelis, Turks vs. Armenians, Sunni Muslims vs. Kurdish Muslims, Sudanese Arabs vs. Sudanese blacks...)?
I do not agree that the "just war" doctrine excludes the possibility of pre-emptive war. In the modern world it is possible for an aggressor to strike from a great distance, in a near instant of time, and in so doing to inflict great and irrevocable damage, including tremendous loss of life. The very certainty that such a strike will inevitably occur is sufficient to justify action to prevent its occurrence. In 1967, faced with imminent invasion by its Arab neighbors, but before open hostilities had begun, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Would anyone argue that Israel's action was not justified?
In 2003, having already witnessed the use of weapons of mass destruction to kill hundreds of thousands, having observed efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, and with convincing intelligence gathered by multiple agencies in multiple countries, the U.S. led Coalition of the Willing put Saddam Hussein out of business.
Marty wrote:
"Key tenets include the necessity of pursuing (not just 'considering') all other mechanisms for solving the issues before resorting to violence. Saddam was a liar and a thug, but when we accused him of having weapons of mass destruction and he denied it, we were the ones who were wrong. Though there was a mechanism in place and in process to determine whether they were there, he was declared guilty and punishment was meted out. "
The fact is that Saddam was not simply "declared guilty and punishment meted out." There was an inspection process in place. Saddam thwarted the inspectors at every turn, kicking them out more than once. There were no less than sixteen U.N. resolutions dealing with Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Saddam violated them all. Countless envoys and delegations met with Saddam, imploring him to change his ways. Yet Saddam gave the world every reason to believe that he still had weapons of mass destruction and that he was still attempting to obtain more. The process which ultimately resulted in the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein took more than thirteen years! I would say that the "Just War" requirement to employ, as the "Just War" doctrine requires:
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All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
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had been met.
This is not the appropriate place to argue about the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the military intelligence which dealt with Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. The fact is that multiple agencies of multiple governments honestly, if inaccurately, concluded that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he intended to use them.
The consequences of any war, just or not, always include tragic events. The deaths of innocent people in Japan from the atomic bombs is but one example. But war planners estimated that the failure to end World War II with atomic bombs would have resulted in far more innocent deaths than those caused by the bombs themselves. The deaths of people from the lack of electricity, clean water, and good medical care as a result of the Iraq bombings is another example. There may not be any way to know with certainty what the trade-off in lives was in Iraq. The trail of death left by Saddam in Iraq and Kuwait shows us what Saddam was capable of. His threats against his neighbors and the known atrocities he committed against his own people led much of the world to believe that his future actions would result in many more deaths. The movement to stop him was both justified and just.
We are now faced with another situation in Iran. Increasingly, analysts agree that Iran is determined to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. The Iranian president has clearly stated his desire to wipe Israel off the map. Does the "Just War" doctrine require Israel to absorb a nuclear attack which would doubtlessly result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands or more, or would it permit (or even require) action to prevent such wanton loss of life, even if it meant the loss of several tens of thousands of lives, including innocent lives? I think not. In fact, in 2009 it could easily and effectively be argued that a pre-emptive "Just War" offers the best hope of minimizing the loss of innocent lives.
I do not believe that any military operation that the United States engages in is automatically "just." However I do believe that, as nations go, the United States is fundamentally a good country which has a sound moral compass. We are not free from the effects of the fall, however; I can think of some military operations we have engaged in which probably were not just, but I hold back from discussing about these because I probably have been adversely influenced by revisionist efforts to rewrite our history.
[More later, possibly]
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