Christians for war are not Christians at all...

I posted this in another thread as part of another discussion, but I think it warrants not only its own thread, but an authentic answer from those who can tell me and others how they follow the Commandments below, and still can go as soldiers to "kill," or who endorse killing by others while on the sidelines:

The Commandments of the Old, and, more important for Christians, the New Testaments are not really open for interpretation.

"Thou shalt not kill." God does elaborate on other Commandments, so I guess His lack of elaboration on this one makes it exactly clear what was meant; DO NOT KILL. Period.

As for the New Testament, Christ pronounces in Matthew 22: 34-40 the Two Greatest Commandments, saying that "all the law and the prophets" hang upon these two. The (NRSV) scripture:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer,
asked him a question to test him.
"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
He said to him, " 'You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "
This is the greatest and first commandment.
And a second is like it:
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets."

Now, the only POSSIBLE interpretation could be, and has been, that "neighbor" means "neighbor in Christ," you know, those we already like/love, particularly because they already embrace our world-view...this is the interpretation that allows killing, IMHO...the interpretation that allows for a classification among those we know into "neighbor," and "NOT neighbor."

But this flies in the face of Christ making this the Second Greatest Commandment. Indeed, why would Christ have to "command" you to love those whom you would already love in any case?

No, this is the Second Greatest Commandment because in it Christ is commanding us to do something we would not ordinarily do without a Command...love ALL of those we come across in our cross-section of life and living...those are our "neighbors," the people whom we could affect if we chose to, just moving through our daily lives.

Now, I am no longer "Christian," although being raised in the A.M.E. church it does inform my spiritual outlook, as do many religious approaches.

But for anyone to claim that they are Christian, and by saying "Christian" mean devout followers of this non-violent Christ who went non-violently to the Cross and who set down the Two Greatest Commandments and made them Commands to Love...for anyone to truly claim that legacy and then support kill-violence in the world, for any reason, given the Commandments that have been laid down (and can anyone honestly say that there is any higher authority informing humans' expected behavior than the Commandments laid down by God and Christ as mentioned above?), that person is fooling themselves into believing they are "Christians," when actually they are not doing what they have been clearly Commanded to do, or NOT do, as the case may be.

To be a Christian takes the kind of courage exhibited by MLK in his assertion that non-violence was fundamentally Christian, in Gandhi, in the monks who set themselves on fire in Saigon (in protest of their inability to practice their religion, and NOT in direct protest to the Vietnam conflict, as commonly believed), the kind of courage that can never be found at the end of a gun, or in the possession of a dollar bill. Thus, "Christians" today are EXTREMELY hard to find, while the bastardization of "Christ-like" is without question all around us.

Christ's message was simple; when people make it more difficult than an embrace of the simple Commands that it was, they are trying to move you in a direction that justifies a particular belief or behavior. Read it yourself; you tell me if these Commandments can either be overlooked, or read another way, and in doing so people can still honestly call themselvs "Christian."

 

Re: Re: Christians for war are not Christians at all...

Well, okay, then its similarly easy to argue that Christians should not be for this war in any way until both Bush and the denominational leaders submit that God has specifically told them to go to war, to indeed "take out Saddam" in His name...

Right now, it seems that most denominational Christian leaders, when asked, are against this war, although they will not come out and say it unless asked...

And yes, the New Testament problems continue for Christians, the above solution I forward would only "solve the problem" for Jews.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Christians for war are not Christians at all...

Lol. No seriously, I love Bush. I have great love for him. But picturing that remains funny...lol

 

Maybe I'm Wrong

Waiting for the "Christians" on this board to justify going to war; maybe they are more devout than I thought, and the "Christians" all about war KNOW that they are lapsed in their "faith"...

 

Remove Thy Ignorance...

(1) The Old Testament (from which you seem to derive "thou shalt not murder" from "thou shalt not kill") was most definitely written in Hebrew and Aramaic, NOT Greek. The NEW Testament, with which you seem to establish no argument, was written originally in Greek. Indeed, BibleInfo.com submits the additional snippet here :
A few chapters of the books Ezra (ch. 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26) and Daniel (ch. 2:4 to 7:28), one verse in Jeremiah (ch. 10:11, and a word in Genesis (ch. 31:47) are written, not in ancient Hebrew, but in Aramaic. Aramaic is about as closely related to Hebrew as Spanish is to Portuguese. However, the differences between Aramaic and Hebrew are not those of dialect, and the two are regarded as two separate languages.


So know what you are talking about, first and foremost, before you spout off about "not reading" the rest of anything. It would seem you need to read ALOT more of everything to remove your clear ignorance.

(2) You say "There is no moral imperative against being in a war," but there is an Old Testament moral imperative AGAINST being in a war without God's official sanction/direction, would you not agree? If so, are you then submitting that our political and spiritual leaders have been told directly by God to go into armed conflict with Iraq (which, from a Christian's POV, would have to be the key question)?

(3) Answer, for Christians, the paradox of going to war when a non-violent Christ went non-violently to the Cross after leaving the Two Great Commandments of Love...?

 

Re: Re: Remove Thy Ignorance...

True. But for Christians, he ought to at least tell you that before you either join or support joining a killing enterprise, dontcha think? Shouldn't he at least, from a Christian POV, at least inform your denominational leadership that he has spoken with the Almighty and been directed accordingly? Of course, we don't KNOW this hasn't happened either. But as we go further down that path we begin to get a little silly, don't we? And for Christians, this ought to be anything but silly. Its the very essence of the faith, the clear example they were given...on the Cross. Dubya has got to do better, and Christians have got do demand more from him...

 

Re: Re: Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Myself as well, except when that religious doctrine (as Christians claim) forms the unmovable foundation of a POV on any political issue. I''m not reciting some obscure text out of context: these are the COMMANDMENTS, the very foundation of the faith. I'm simply calling to task the veracity of that belief as currently exhibited, because I do not see it reflected in the masses of the "Christ-like"'s behavior, in either denouncing Bush, or demanding he reveal his "divine" direction.

 

Listen, the faith is the faith. Either it stands for something, or, in its relativistic breakdown, stands for nothing at all. Maybe the thign for the "Christ-like" around the world to do when Nazi Germany began its horrific behavior would have been to go to Europe and minister, by the tens of millions. Maybe that would have been reflective of the faith, in 1938. Maybe tey would have moved not Hitler, but the troops under Hitler, at the rifle-toting level, that Hitler needed to make his ranting different from the guy in the 5th Avenue/53rd St. Subway stop.

Maybe; but that would have taken alot of courage, to stand Christ-like in that way, at that time...non-violent, weaponless..trying to move individuals, with just a Word. With just sacrifice.

Very Christ-like, IMHO.

On the other hand, if Christ acted the way WE (humanity) behaved in WWII...