| Highclere Church | Iraq Question |
| Sermon by Horace Mitchell, Reader-in-Training There is no way that war can fit within the moral order. There is simply an inherent contradiction between the systematic, purposeful taking of human life and the moral order. This leads to the position of non-violence or pacifism. It doesn't say one should never oppose evil. It says one should try to oppose evil in many ways, but not by taking human life, and particularly not in the systematic fashion that is warfare.People who took this position became conscientious objectors in the world wars. It's certainly a position one can empathise with. The easiest answer: oppose all war and all violence. The 'might is right' position Explaining the second position Michael Walzer cites a story from Thucydides. The Athenian generals, who were much more powerful than the other side, met the enemy before the battle, and said: Come on now, let's not talk about justice. Let's talk about the world as it is.In other words, you are going to lose, why fight? In the world as it is, the strong do what they will, the weak do what they must. The moral order that applies to most areas of human life, doesn't apply to warfare. The very nature of war, the nature of what is at stake in war, the use of arms to settle conflict, these things cannot afford moral restraint. This position says: when one goes to war, you fight to win, by all means possible, and then you go back to normal life. In normal times, you can live within the moral order. One might call this the Hitlerian position, though perhaps with some reservations about what Hitler regarded as a 'normal moral order'! A BBC reporter this week called it the 'might is right' view, and paraphrased John Wayne with 'a nation's gonna do, what a nation's gonna do'. Concept of a 'just war' The third position disagrees with both these views. It says some use of force can be morally acceptable, but not all uses of force. That's the basic argument of what we hear called 'the doctrine of a just war'. It says the only legitimate use of force is a limited use - limited in its purposes (not all reasons justify war), limited in its methods (not all ways of fighting war are morally acceptable), and limited in its intention, in the logic that drives us to war and that drives the purposes and limits of the war. Preventing the conquest of Europe by fascism might be such a purpose. Stopping genocide in the Balkans another. The Christian church evolved the concept of a just war, starting from the thinking of St Augustine back in the 5th century, when he concluded that 'war is the result of sin, and war is the remedy for sin'. The reason we have war is because people do sinful things to other people. For individuals we have the criminal law, through which we authorise the use of 'necessary force' - up to and including shooting a criminal - when it's the only way to stop the criminal from harming someone else. When it's a country and its government that's harming people, when all else fails, the Just War position says we may be justified in using force to protect human life, human values, and the basic order that is necessary for human dignity. Three questions This leaves us with three questions. How do you judge that all other reasonable actions have failed and war has become the right course? How do you limit the use of force to whatever is necessary to put a stop to the evil you are acting against? And who makes the decision? Wide acceptance of the 'Just War' position The first two questions have become very complex and have been argued about ever since Augustine. In the thirteenth century St Thomas Aquinas proposed three requirements for a just war. He said it requires the right authority - only a legitimate government can decide to initiate war, not an individual or a movement; it must have a just cause - the prime example being self defence; and it must have just intent - for example a war to secure or restore peace, or to protect people from the work of evil-doers. To these have been added other requirements to do with matters such as only doing what is necessary, only starting if there is a high probability of a successful outcome, the idea that war should be a last resort and - since the second world war and the development of weapons of mass destruction the view that some methods of war are unacceptable. Widespread acceptance of these principles underpins debate and resolutions in the United Nations - though of course in that forum heavily overlayed by many other factors of self interest among the nations. The same principles are the basis of the Geneva convention, the more recent treaty banning landmines, rulings against nuclear proliferation, and agreements to stop making and storing chemical or biological weapons. We might be here for three days rather than three more minutes if we started exploring that territory. But our political and public debate about war would be much improved if everyone who joins the debate took the time and trouble to look into and argue about the underlying principles rather than shouting slogans and sound bytes to defend their own prejudices and attack each other's arguments. One problem is that those who believe that war is wrong in all circumstances cannot, for obvious reasons, join a reasoned discussion about a particular war - they can only oppose. For those of us who can see with Augustine, Aquinas and church leaders through the centuries that war is always wrong but may sometimes be necessary, the question is infinitely more difficult. And of course there have been Christian thinkers who have been on the 'all war is wrong' side of the discussion. There is certainly no easy answer. Who decides? The third question is easier to answer. Who decides? Our political leaders make the decision. I'm sure that you like me thank God that we are not faced with the huge burden of deciding to commit military forces to action. The church's view Focusing in on Iraq we can know rather clearly what our own church leaders say in this case, because Archbishop Rowan Williams, with the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, have published a joint statement this week. Have any of you read the statement itself? If you did you'll have noticed that what it actually says doesn't quite match all the headlines about it. The Times said 'Archbishops confront Blair over Iraq war'. Here's the text*. What it says - and it's very short, just nine sentences - can be summed up as 'Blair and Bush and all of us should and must do all we possibly can to avoid war, and so should Saddam Hussein and the United Nations'. War must be avoided if at all humanly possible. But it also recognises that 'the alternative to war cannot be passivity or appeasement'. In it's opening sentence it says that war is always a sign of human failure, but it recognises that war can in the end be necessary. Help from The Bible And so to the Bible. Today we in our first lesson read the first verse of chapter 8 of Proverbs: Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?.When you read the whole chapter it's clear that 'Wisdom' here is not a vague abstract thing but is an aspect of Almighty God. That all wisdom comes from God. Then our reading skipped - as the lectionary decrees - to verse 22. But in doing so we missed what the Bible tells us about God's Wisdom. It tells us that when we argue we must do so to seek the truth rather than just expound our own prejudices. Verses seven to nine: for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to one who understands and right to those who find knowledge.Would that we and our politicians could be strong to always follow this. It's a text against sin and against spin! Proverbs also tells us that leaders must make decisions but they must do so with great care and in humility. Verses twelve to fifteen: I, wisdom, live with prudence, and I attain knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have good advice and sound wisdom; I have insight, I have strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just.What an amazing text for today and for a time when war may be around the corned. But then the Bible always is amazing. With God's wisdom we will know the truth and we will do the right thing. We must listen as well as argue. We must study the arguments of others as well expressing our own views. And so to the one thing we know that we can do, and do with confidence, which is to pray. A prayer Lord, we know that you love the whole world and all its peoples. We know that you hate evil and injustice. We know that you see into our hearts and our innermost thoughts. Enter the hearts of our leaders and help them with the terrible burden of the decisions they must make. Give them your wisdom to make the right judgements. Guide them to seek the truth and to speak the truth. Help us to understand what we should do in our smaller ways to combat evil in the world and to bring to all our neighbours, friends and colleagues the knowledge that in the most violent storms of this world you are there as the quiet spirit of love and peace. We ask this in the name of the redeemer of the whole world, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. References: http://www.amacad.org/events/justwar_trans.htm A juts war? Judeo-Christian and Islamic Perspectives, Hehir, Mottahedeh et al - debate http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/SS/SS040.html#SSQ40A1THEP1 St Thomas Aquinas, 'In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary . . . ' *http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/33/00/acns3314.html Statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster Biblical texts are from the New Revised Standard Version
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This page last updated: 24 February 2003