Christians In A Warring World -
Galatians 6:1-10

In the Gospel of today, all three temptation of Jesus are on conditional clauses: “If you are the son of God. It is easy for Jesus to resist such temptations because in his heart there is no “if”. For Jesus, the Father-Son relationship he has with God is not a thing to be tested.

But for us, if I will have to go deep into our context of to day, if we are tempted: if you are the son of God, daughter of God, … if God heals, … if God gives peace to our world, to our nation etc….

In such a crucial hour as this when the hysteria of war and violence threaten to blot out our reason and paralyze our faith in all spiritual forces, it is imperative that the church should again declare its abiding conviction that the Christian way is the only way out.

"But just what is the Christian way?" Ah, there’s the difficulty. With such obviously contradictory statements coming from so many so-called orthodox sources and self-styled authentic sources, it is small wonder that the public mind is so desperately confused on this vital matter.

To be specific, what is the Christian way with reference to this pressing problem of war  in Ukraine for example and in our Nation of Myanmar. Without wanting to be dogmatic and arbitrary, and with all kindliness and affection for those who differ with us, there are many of us who have come to hold certain convictions in this matter with such compulsive assurance, that we feel we must speak out boldly and unequivocally. We sincerely believe that the Christian way is the Pacifist way.

We are quite aware of the fact that the very term "Pacifist" is extremely repugnant and offensive to not a few. In the popular mind, the epithet all too generally suggests sentimentalism, spinelessness, weakness, even cowardice. It is used as a term of derision, contempt, and obloquy.

But many words that are now held in high regard, words that were once thought of as designations of highest approbation, were as unpopular as the word "Pacifist" is today. Take the word "Christian," for example. To call a man a Christian in the early days was to label him with the worst title available. But what did the Christians to about it? Instead of resenting it, or apologizing for it, or trying to deny it, they boldly admitted it, boasted of it, gloried in it; and today to say that a man is a real Christian is to pay him the highest tribute possible.

So in the same way we accept the word "Pacifist." It is a good, accurate, honest term. So, far from being ashamed of it, we feel unworthy of it, would like really to deserve it. For what does it actually mean? Precisely what it says: "peacemaker" - from the Latin, pacem facio - I make peace, or as the dictionary has it: "A Pacifist is an advocate of the abolition of war." Is that anything to be ashamed of? Is not every man, woman, and child of good-will desirous of being just that - a Pacifist? And what higher commendations could there be than that of the Master himself who said: "Blessed are the ‘Pacifists’, for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9).

Suppose we quit this vile business of calling names. Suppose we stop labeling each other or hurling epithets at those with whom we disagree. To be sure, we are all tempted to practice this art - particularly when we do not know how to answer intelligently and convincingly certain upsetting questions propounded by our opponents in a controversy. In times like these, we need above all else to try to understand each other and to get the other person’s point of view. For obviously no one person or group of persons has all the truth; nor is any altogether devoid of some. Each has a certain amount of illumination to give the others, and God knows we need all the light we can get, for the days are dreadfully dark right now and the winter peak is still ahead.

Now the first thing we all ought to remember is this: Nobody wants war. Everybody, with any sense at all, hates it. We all want peace, militarists and pacifists alike. There is no difference of opinion about that. The disagreement arises over the method involved. The so-called militarist says that the only way to maintain peace is to prepare for war, enlarge the military forces to such an extent that no one will dare attack us. Wars always have been and always will be, he insists. Nations are invariably motivated and dominated by self-interest. The "haves" want to keep all they’ve got and want more.  Russia wants more and China too wants more, and the "have nots" want to get their fair share. Hence, conflicts are inevitable. The only adequate defense is equipment for and skill in killing and destruction. This method has been practiced so long, has been so widely accepted as inevitable and thus seems so obvious, that one who doubts it and particularly one who denounces it as insane and suicidal is considered impractical, visionary, and Utopian. For the average man in the street, the necessity of resorting to war as the final method of settling disputes is as clear and as certain as that the sun goes around the earth or that the earth is flat. All of which is interesting but untrue.

On the other hand, the pacifist believes that we get what we prepare for - always. If we prepare for war, sooner or later we get war - not possibly, but inevitably. Conversely, the only way to get peace is to fulfill the conditions of peace; that is, to strive, not superficially, but sacrificially, to eliminate the causes of war. This means that we should stop pouring out billions for armaments and all sorts of war preparations, for thus we increasingly create fear and suspicion and hate in the hearts of the people of other lands. The pacifist believes that the end never justifies the means, but rather that the means inevitably determine the end. The pacifist believes that to fulfill the conditions of hell in order to establish the Kingdom of Heaven is the ultimate insanity, for the law of the harvest never fails to function: What we sow we reap. If we plant hate, bitterness, murder, and all sorts of sin, we guarantee a harvest of Hitlers, Mussolinis, Stalins, Pol Pots and general depression throughout the world. The pacifist believes that to establish worldwide peace, and to maintain it, requires justice, good-will, cooperation, fundamental righteousness, and a love that is willing to sacrifice itself for the sake of the cause it espouses.

Thus, pacifists are by no means passive or negative persons who propose to lie down and do nothing in the face of injustice, unrighteousness, and rampant evil. They stand for the "fiery positive." Pacifism is not a theory. It is a way of life - creative, aggressive, forth-putting, sacrificial. It is the way of the cross in contrast to the way of the sword.

Some time ago 20,000 American ministers of religion answered a questionnaire, and of that number nearly 15,000 said that they would never sanction, or as armed combatants, participate in another war. These men obviously came to this great decision only after terrific travail of spirit and disciplined thinking. Despite all the plausibilities and time-honored justifications of war, they saw certain facts with unmistakable clarity. First, they came to realize that war is sin - the most colossal and ruinous social sin that afflicts mankind. The Christian Churches , like many other great denominations, has officially declared its fundamental conviction in this matter. War is sin, it insists, because it involves: (1) complete denial of the ideas and ideals of Christ; (2) the ruthless, indiscriminate slaughter of human beings; (3) the utter violation of personality; (4) lying propaganda; (5) deliberate breeding of the spirit of hate; (6) wholesale destruction of property; (7) putting in the place of moral law the obligation of military necessity; (8) distorting the religion of Jesus into the religion of a war god. How can anything justify committing the worst sin imaginable? And that is precisely what modern war inevitably involves.

In the second place, not only is war sinful, the pacifist believes it is likewise utterly futile. It never achieves the results sought. The victor is victimized as much as the victim in modern war. How can we so easily forget that not more than two decades ago the Americans fought and won a war to end war; they fought and won a war to make the world a decent place in which to live; they fought and won a war to make the world safe for democracy. And what happened? They lost far more than they dreamed possible. We gained virtually nothing. And the defeated of yesterday defies the world today.

In the third place, the pacifist believes that war is suicidal. Sooner or later it destroys those who resort to it. Hence, nothing could be worse than modern war, for it has within itself the essence of all other evils - hatred, vengeance, murder, atrocity, deception, lust, defense of falsehood, evil, loss of moral standards, disease, famine, poverty, despair, violence, revolution, lawlessness, crime, and death. To talk of curing any evil by compounding and intensifying all evils is, to the pacifist at least, sheer madness.

Yes, pacifists believe in preparedness, but only the kind that prepares for peace. Pacifists believe in fighting, but only with the weapons of the Spirit. Pacifists believe in resisting violence, evil, and unrighteousness, but not by adopting the same wicked means and methods we deprecate in the aggressor. Pacifists believe in defending their country, but not by resorting to use of those evil agencies which destroy those who use them more surely than they destroy those against whom they are used.

Pacifists are willing to die for their country, for they love it with a sacrificial devotion that makes them not willing to sin for their country, to lie for it, to hate for it, to murder for it. For to commit such sins is to sow the seeds of destruction in one’s own land, and that means national dissolution, not defense. A pacifist believes with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of the living God, is the final authority on the way of life, for a nation as well as individual, and that that nation which would save its life must be willing to lose it for his sake, which means it must be willing to die for the right, but not sin for it. It must be willing to suffer and be crucified, if necessary, but never to despair - for ultimately such a nation shall stage a resurrection and redeem the world.

Doubtless, to all those schooled in the philosophy of violence and vengeance, such a doctrine as this sounds frightfully foolish, sentimental, and altogether unrealistic. I can understand that all too well. It sounded that way to us for a time, too. To talk about meeting physical violence with non-violent resistance seemed silly. This business of turning the other cheek, returning good for evil, praying for those who despitefully use you - well, it was all in the Book clearly enough. Jesus not only preached it, but practiced it so uncompromisingly that he got himself killed for it; but I knew it wouldn’t work - not for nations anyhow. Anybody could see that the only way to conquer an invader was to kill him. That was as obvious as that the sun goes around the earth, or that the earth is flat. Exactly.

There are some who said that murder and slaughter and lying and starving and sinning would bring peace and prosperity and a united world, were wrong - hideously wrong. Apparently they forgot what kind of a world this is - that you can’t sow evil and get good; you can’t fulfill the conditions of hell and get any semblance of heaven. Then I remembered reading somewhere a simple, shattering, statement of cosmic law: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

At last it dawned on us that my Christ did know what he was talking about, that his way was the only way that is ultimately effective, that when a nation or a man is attacked, the answer is not to resort to all the devilish devices of violence we denounce in the invader, nor is the answer to lie down like a coward and cravenly acquiesce in his demands; the answer is to resist him, refuse to do what he tells you to do - even if he kills you for your disobedience. And while you resist, don’t hate him; pray for him, if possible, and though there is no guarantee that you won’t be crucified in the process, there is pretty good ground for belief that you will stage a resurrection. That is the elemental meaning of the cross - the crucial heart of the gospel of Christ.

As a final word I feel like saying to all my Christian brethren, particularly to all my Christians, what Paul said some 1,900 years ago to his friends: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgement ... For though the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; unto us who would be saved, it is the rower of God" (1 Corinthians 1:10, 18).