Eight years ago the waitress at Perkins came over to our table and told John, Buck and myself that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. We waited for the punchline but it never came, it wasn't a joke. I spent the rest of the day in my office watching the days events unfold on the TV. I wept.
Having grown up in Northern Ireland and having worked with Prison Fellowship I knew something of terrorism and even counted some former terrorists among my friends. I had witnessed bombs going off, I had friends who had lost family members to terrorists but this was something different.
When I moved to Virginia in 2004 this particular attack became a lot more personal as several members of our congregation worked at the Pentagon and one of our members, Bud Boon, lost his life in the attack. It was a very moving moment for me when I entered the Pentagon to give the invocation at a change of command ceremony and we entered the building where the plane had hit.
What I don't get are the tens of thousands of lives that have been lost in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since then. I suppose its Jesus teaching to love your enemy that causes me to pause here. Perhaps its Paul reminding us of the proverb to feed our enemy if they are hungry and to give them something to drink if they are thirsty that causes me pause.
I know there is a long tradition of just war theory but every major Christian body outside the USA and many within, rejected the war in Iraq as a just war.
A truly Christian just war theory allows the believer to question every order to discern whether it meets the criteria of a just war. In reality this makes this position untenable for military service and is only one small step away from pacifism. What the nation and the military want is a patriotic just war approach where people will follow orders and act because the authorities determine they are just, the authorities are not to be questioned. But this is not and never has been the Christian position.
I mentioned in an earlier post how Ray Davey responded to seeing Dresden afrer the allied bombing. Certainly the bombing of Dresden like the current campaigns demonstratecd superior military strength on the part of the US and the allied forces, but is that the way of Christ?
