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This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 2:31 PM and filed under History, Peace, Religion, War. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

One Response to “AlterNet: Jesus Hated War — Why Do Christians Love It So Much?”

1. Ian Alterman said:

   The writer is not entirely accurate in his portrayal of “the church” (or believers in general) in some regards.

   “Most German churches cooperated with, or at least did not vocally oppose, Hitler’s agenda.”

   This may or may not have been true of “most” GERMAN churches, but it was certainly NOT true of ALL churches throughout Europe. In fact, by 1933 (if not earlier), Hitler was already quietly arresting and/or killing priests and pastors in Prussia, Poland, Austria and other countries as a result of their dissent. In one instance, over 400 parish priests were arrested, and less than 10% survived and returned to their parishes.

   “Today…it is obvious that the vast majority of professed Christians have been misled, intentionally or unintentionally, into believing that they can immerse themselves in un-Christ-like realities like war and killing and somehow still be following the gentle Jesus.”

   “Vast majority?” I doubt that, whether globally or within the U.S. Even at its peak, the so-called Christian Right (which includes both Catholics and evangelical Protestants) represented perhaps 35% of American Christians. That is not a majority, much less a “vast” majority.

   What the writer may be confusing is the fact that the Christian Right dominates the media – the “public eye” – and thus SEEMS far more powerful and “representative” than it is or was. (I am not including its influence over politics and policy, which is a different matter.)

   “One only has to read the gruesome history of the many ‘holy wars’ and atrocities committed in the history of Christendom, including the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the wars of the Reformation and counter-Reformation, the various genocides including the Nazi Holocaust.”

   Oh, for goodness sake: THAT canard again? Firstly, the Nazi Holocaust was NOT driven by Christian belief: Hitler was a pagan, not a Christian, despite all his claims to the contrary. And there are dozens of highly respected historical works that debunk Hitler’s claimed Christianity. (The best among these is Michael Burleigh’s “Sacred Causes,” perhaps the best book ever written on the intersection of politics and religion.)

   Second, once we remove the Holocaust from the above list, we are left with the realization that Christianity has been an overwhelmingly “pacifist” religion (i.e., not engaging in war, violence, etc.) for at least 250 years, and probably more. Rather, it has been the atheists – Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot et al – who have been at the forefront of war, violence and murder for the past 100 years. Is there still Christian violence? Yes, but it is (at this point) largely defensive.

   “If war-makers mix religion and politics by invoking God’s blessings on the cannons and the cannon fodder, shouldn’t the churches, which are supposed to be the consciences of the nation, apply core Christian ethical principles to the war question and refuse to cooperate with the slaughter of fellow children of God?”

   Absolutely. And, again, I doubt the writer’s claim that a “vast majority” of Christians supports war, violence, etc. It is also important what types of Christians a leader surrounds himself with, or allows to advise him/her. Bush surrounded himself with the Christian Right, and thus got the “feedback loop” he wanted.

   Obama has surrounded himself with a much more pacifist group of Christian leaders. And although he may not listen to them all the time (and may blatantly ignore their advice), one can only hope that they will eventually have an increasingly positive effect on his foreign policy vis-a-vis war.

   “The world would have been far better off if the Christian leaders of the world had been faithful to the ethical teachings of the gospels and quit making blasphemous appeals to God on behalf of war, whether with those ‘Gott Mit Uns’ belt buckles or the ‘God Bless America’ political sloganeering.”

   To this, one can only say “Amen!” But, again, it is not as though there were NOT Christian leaders who WERE faithful to Christianity’s “ethical teachings”: dissent has existed in the Christian church (and among Christians in general), and continues to do so.

   In this regard, just as we look to moderate Muslim leaders to help “tone down” the fundamentalist rhetoric and deliberate misinterpretations of Koranic scripture of many of their colleagues in order to bring Islam more in line with its own ethical teachings, it is up to the moderate Christians among us to help “tone down” the fundamentalist rhetoric and deliberate misinterpretations of Judeo-Christian scripture in order to bring Christianity more in line with the actual ethical and moral teachings of Christ.

   Peace.

   Posted on 29-Dec-09 at 8:56 am | Permalink