The Churches and the War

March 1, 1991 Topic: Society Regions: Americas Tags: PostmodernismSociology

The Churches and the War

Mini Teaser: "The war in the Gulf is not a Christian war, a Jewish war, or a Moslem war--it is a just war," President Bush recently told a group of conservative religious broadcasters, "and it is a war with which good will prevail.

by Author(s): Robert P. Beschel, Jr. and Peter D. Feaver

Many mainline churches also tend to believe mistakenly that international law, diplomacy, and military power are contradictory, not complementary elements of any constructive diplomatic solution.  In a fashion remarkably similar to anti-war activists prior to World War II, they devote great attention to proclaiming lofty principles while giving relatively little thought to the tradeoffs, complexities, and hard choices involved in implementing these principles in a fallen world.  Even inherently defensive actions, such as the initial deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia to deter an Iraqi attack or the use of U.S. naval vessels to enforce the blockade, were criticized as dangerously escalating the crisis.  In a November resolution on the Gulf and Middle East Crisis, the NCC went on record opposing any sale or transfer of arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia as "morally irresponsible"--although these states faced the very real threat of an Iraqi attack.  Mainline Protestant thinking regarding the efficacy of the United Nations betrays similar confusion.  NCC calls to reduce American troop deployments in the Gulf "except those which might be required and explicitly recommended by the Security Council of the UN" are based upon unfounded assumptions regarding the UN's ability to function as an objective, apolitical body interested only in the common good.

Catholic theologians display a more sophisticated understanding of the interaction between power and diplomacy.  Writing in the liberal journal Commonweal, the Reverend J. Bryan Hehir argued that the initial deployment of forces in Saudi Arabia was "justified politically and morally" in that it forestalled war and provided time for diplomacy and economic sanctions to work.  Archbishop Mahony's letter acknowledged that a strong military presence can give credibility to a vigorous pursuit of non-violent solutions to the crisis, but expressed legitimate concern that the pressure to use military force may grow as the pursuit of non-violent options dragged on.

In the final assessment, the judgement of the mainline Protestant leadership regarding the morality of the Gulf War owes less to a carefully reasoned application of just war theory than to two deeper and more firmly held beliefs peculiar to the members who sit on the peace and justice committees of mainline Protestant denominations.

The first is an overwhelming sentiment against any use of force in international affairs.  A 1980 survey of United Methodist bishops, for example, revealed that 92.6 percent rejected the use of war as an instrument of national policy, even though the church itself remained committed to traditional just war doctrine.(2)  Similar views can be found in many denominations and find expression in a variety of outlets, such as the NCC's November 1990 resolution on the Gulf which warned that Christians must witness against "weak resignation to the illogical pursuit of militarism and war."

Mainline denominations have now formed de facto coalitions with traditional pacifist groups.  Eleven religious organizations recently united to form "Churches for Middle East Peace," a group that includes representatives from the American Friends Service Committee (the Quaker church's political action wing) and the Mennonite Central Committee as well as the NCC and several mainline denominations.  At the December press conference summarizing the results of the NCC's mission to the Middle East, mainline church representatives deferred the question of whether a Gulf War would satisfy traditional just war criteria to Jim Wallis, who asserted that these principles have not and cannot be met.  Wallis was essentially playing the role of a sheep in wolf's clothing.  Reporters were not told that, as a devout pacifist and the leader of the radical Sojourners community in Washington, DC, he had concluded long ago that every war is immoral.  Indeed, in 1980 he argued that the entire notion of a just war represents "a warped and twisted" view of Christian theology.

The second theme running throughout mainline thinking on the Persian Gulf War is a thinly disguised anti-American bias (or as the New York Times more elaborately put it, "a deep distrust of the United States' capacity to act constructively overseas").  Many clerics argue that, because of various sins of omission and commission, the United States lacks the necessary moral authority to address this crisis.  Others have advanced the notion of moral equivalency.  The General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist church, for example, released a statement on the Gulf that mourned the "questionable policies of all nations which would seek superiority over others."  Still others have placed primary responsibility for the conflict squarely upon the United States.  United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, who chaired the committee that drafted the NCC resolution on the Gulf, recently urged other bishops to demonstrate against American policy, arguing that the United States is the "real aggressor."(3)

Radical Councils, Pacifist Counsel

How did this shift away from traditional just war theory to a radical, pacifist position come about?  The answer to this question can be found in an interrelated series of theological, historical, demographic, and organizational developments that occurred during the 1960s.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, American Protestantism was dominated by the thinking of several leading theologians, including Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr.  These thinkers, and many of the classic Protestant understandings upon which their work was grounded, came under withering attack in the social turmoil of the 1960s.  In the wake of this assault, liberal seminaries, churches, and denominations found themselves adrift theologically.  No dominant figure emerged to provide coherence and vision, and many theologians and seminarians ceased to believe that systematic theology was either feasible or desirable.  A pronounced theological eclecticism sprang up that led to the fragmentation of theology or, more accurately, the creation of multiple "sub-theologies" catering to particular grievances.  Many of these theologies, such as liberation theology, feminist theology, black theology, and eco-theology, have borrowed heavily from secular progressive movements, and in some instances represent little more than an attempt to provide a spiritual component to distinctly non-theistic (or even atheist) concepts.

Much of the historical optimism that infuses these secular movements has found its way into mainline churches.  They have largely abandoned the "prophetic realism" of Reinhold Niebuhr, with its emphasis upon the fallen nature of humanity and the imperfectability of human institutions.  Instead, following the teaching of Jurgen Moltmann and others, they have come to embrace a "theology of hope" that views human nature as malleable.  Freed from the burden of reproducing the sins of its fathers, humanity is now capable of radically transforming itself.  As Moltmann noted in his 1969 book Religion, Revolution and the Future, the means of realizing this utopia could well be a violent revolution along Marxist lines.

Without going that far, many liberal churches remain convinced that humanity can be changed for the better by eliminating the roots of oppression.  Because of the historical experience of the 1960s, these roots have become closely associated in their thinking with American military, political, and economic institutions.

Until recently, church involvement within American politics was characterized by long periods of inactivity punctuated by occasional, frenetic crusades around particular issues.  Before World War II, only the Methodist church had established an office in Washington, and this was primarily intended to keep an eye on temperance issues.  Even as late as the 1960s, very few denominations maintained any presence in Washington or viewed it as their goal to influence social legislation.

The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War changed all this.  The successful mobilization of many churches on behalf of civil rights legislation convinced many religious leaders that mainline denominations could be an effective force in national politics.  At the same time, growing disillusionment with the war in Vietnam brought many clergy to reconsider their fundamental assumptions regarding America's role in the world.

Initially supportive of the war, mainline churches suddenly found themselves under attack as a part of the "establishment."  They watched their college and young adult membership decline precipitously.  Church leaders began to question the morality of the American position, and by 1967 many had shifted decisively against the war.  These sentiments intensified as the war dragged on.  By the early 1970s, the depth of the disillusionment many Protestant leaders felt towards American institutions and values was readily apparent.  The United Methodist church produced a study guide in 1975 that argued "Profit, military might, and alliances with power interests in the world" had made the United States "the hub of a vast network of `economic plunder.' " In 1979, an NCC task force concluded that the American legal system is designed "to suppress non-violent political dissent, to cope with social problems, and to provide cheap labor."  During that year, Methodist Bishop Dale White responded to the seizure of American hostages in Iran by noting that "all of us really, are hostages...to a vast political economic system of the cruelty structures which are preordaining that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

While churches and academic institutions were becoming more ideologically polarized and alienated from American political and economic institutions, attendance at many of the major seminaries shot up.  From 1964 to 1973, enrollment at Harvard Divinity School increased by a third, and other institutions posted similar gains.  War protesters sought refuge in the draft's education exemption clause, and other young men and women enrolled in search of values they felt were lacking elsewhere in American society.  Thus, many current pastors and denominational leaders spent their formative years in seminary at the height of the social unrest of the 1960s and retain much of the world view that they developed during this period.  A recent poll revealed that over half of the pastors of mainline denominations believe that the basic institutions of the United States need a complete overhaul.(4)

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