My aunt once told me a story from her youth group days. This was Emmanuel Parish in Southern Pines in the early 1960s, and the Cold War was in full swing.
The discussion topic was this: Imagine that the Soviet Union has launched a nuclear attack on the United States. In the minutes it takes for them to approach, how should we respond?
The teenagers gathered around the circle each answered logically, according to the doctrine of nuclear warfare. The clear answer was to counterstrike, because you have to punish your adversaries even if you won’t survive the day.
My aunt went against the group, saying, “I think we would not be right to return fire. At that point, we were already lost, so why destroy our adversaries as well?”
The youth group leader responded by saying that she had answered correctly, at least from a Christian perspective. All human life is equally sacred to God, and we would be committing the terrible sin of taking life gratuitously, even if as a response.
From that same Christian perspective, our president’s threat earlier this week that “a whole civilization will die” if a deadline was not met that day was as shocking as it was dangerous. Whether considered as hardball negotiation or unfiltered ranting, that kind of violent rhetoric simply cannot be justified from a Christian perspective. We are called to respect the dignity of every human being, and to see every person as a child of God, no matter their nationality or religion. Their lives are not ours to take.
That is not to say that we expect our presidents to behave like Christians. Rather, it is to be absolutely clear about what we as Christians view as unacceptable, dangerous speech.
Are we called to see the dignity of every human being in times of war as well? To be sure, we must do so especially in times of war and conflict, lest our tendency to violence become unrestrained by ethics, morality, or even simple human decency.
When our government abdicates its responsibility to speak and act ethically, people of faith must remember that we are called to a standard that is far more robust, yet far more transformative, than that of nation or tribe. We are called to love our enemies, and to love our neighbors—who include our adversaries—as ourselves.
This love cannot coexist with threats of annihilation, or with the belief that another civilization is ours to destroy if we deem it necessary.
Such threats do more than just destabilize and frighten our adversaries: they do grave harm to our own souls.
Faithfully,
