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Well, good evening, everyone. We are continuing tonight in our series on an introduction to Christian ethics, and our subject tonight is going to be the subject of war ethics, which is a broad topic, and as we are limited on our time, we're going to be focusing on some specific points as we go, not, of course, being able to get to every single topic, but if you do have a question in regard to this topic, please, just at whatever point you're comfortable, ask, and we'll try to engage that question as best we can.
This is week five in class. Week one, we looked at the subject of ethics in general. Why are we studying this? What is ethics? What is virtue and goodness? In week two, we looked at our understanding of biblical law and how biblical law plays a part in understanding Christian ethics.
We looked at different groups and how different groups understand how the law should be applied. In week three, we looked at life ethics, which included abortion, reproduction, and genetics, and then week four was last week with Brother Bert.
Again, thank him for teaching. He may be watching from home. Again, I want to say how much I appreciated last week. He did a great job. He talked about suicide, euthanasia, and capital punishment. One thing I will ask you to add to your notes, and this is just for last week.
This will be one of the things that you may want to know for your quiz, because we do have a new quiz coming out this week, which will cover the weeks three, four, and five, and that is the word euthanasia comes from the Greek, and it comes from the word thanatos, which means death, and the prefix eu means good, so if you think of like the word eulogy, that means a good word.
Eu is the prefix of logos there, so it means a good word. Well, euthanas or euthanatos means good death. That is what euthanasia means by definition. It means a good death. Now, we talked about last week how that can lead to some ethical dilemmas.
However, I do want you to have the meaning of the word, because that may show itself either on this week's quiz or on the final, so please put that in your notes. So, as I said, tonight we are going to be looking at the subject of war ethics and our three main topics as I try to cover at least three things per class.
The three main topics for tonight are, number one, pacifism, number two, just war theory, and number three, personal protection and defense. Once you get those written down, I will lead us in a quick prayer.
Let's bow our heads. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight to continue our study on this important subject of Christian ethics, understanding virtues and principles, which we want to model our lives around, seeking to be biblical in all that we say and do.
I pray tonight that as we discuss subjects like war and violence and suffering and pain, along with protection and the virtue of saving life, I pray, Lord, that you would, as always, keep me from error as I teach, open up the hearts of your people to understand your word, and may you be glorified in the study of your truth.
In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, so let's begin with the subject of pacifism. How would you define the word pacifism? Who wants to try that? All right, AJ? Okay. All right, to be against violence.
All right, that sounds fair. Anyone want to add anything to that or any additional thoughts? Well, pacifism is defined by the dictionary, and this is Miriam Webster's definition, as opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes.
So that is the basic understanding of what the word pacifism means. And so, AJ, you're correct. It's someone who is opposed to violence. A pacifist is often not willing to serve as a combatant in the military.
However, some pacifists are willing to serve in certain positions within the military, such as the position of chaplain or the position of medic. If you've ever seen the film Hacksaw Ridge, Hacksaw Ridge is about a young man who was a Seventh Day Adventist, and he was unwilling to exercise any form of violence.
And so he went to basic training and said, I can't touch a gun, but I still want to serve. And so the movie is about an event in his life where he ended up saving the lives of many people, even though he was not willing himself to engage in any act of violence.
And so that would be a person who would be an example of someone who, while being a pacifist, still was willing to serve. Now, I have two different words up here that I want us to be introduced to, and that is what we would call a nonviolent pacifist.
That is a person who's morally opposed to the use of violence. That would be such as the young man in Hacksaw Ridge. That would be an example. He would be a nonviolent pacifist, meaning he himself is unwilling to engage in any form of violence.
But then you have a further form of pacifism, and I would say this is a, when I use the word extreme, don't think that I'm using the word extreme in the negative. I'm just saying it's a more extreme position, and that is what's called non-participatory pacifism, and that would be someone who says, not only can I not engage in violence, but I cannot participate in any role that would support a war effort.
So like, for instance, let's say a person gets a job with a company, and they find out that the company is a manufacturer of weapons for the military, and they are a person who believes in non-participatory pacifism.
They would then have an ethical dilemma because they would have to determine whether or not they're really participating in a violent act by creating or building or manufacturing something that would be used for the purpose of war.
It's interesting in Scott Ray's analysis of this in the book that we're studying, he actually talks about the fact, he says, well, what if your company makes tires for airplanes? Good evening, James. He says, what if your company makes tires for airplanes?
We know that there's probably limited companies that make tires for airplanes, and so the same company that makes tires for a 747 jet airliner might be the same person who makes the tires for an F -15 fighter pilot jet.
He said, so where would you draw the line? And would you say, I'm willing to work on the 747, but I'm not willing to work on the, you know, and so it's an interesting ethical dilemma when you start saying how much participation would be allowed with someone who is a non-participatory pacifist, meaning they cannot participate in any form that would support a war effort.
Christian pacifism is the position that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith. We've talked about what pacifism is, but now let's move to the Christian pacifism. This is a person who claims that their pacifism comes from their faith, and this is the position that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith.
They would base this on several passages. I would invite you to open your Bibles tonight. I want us to look at four verses. In fact, I'll ask that we read. Who has a, who would be willing to read? Okay.
All right. So I'll let, if you would, Matthew chapter 5, verse 38, 39. So that's the first one. If you want to do that, Rebecca. AJ, did I see your hand? First Thessalonians 5, 15. Mike, Romans 12, 17 to 21.
And I need one more. It's okay if nobody. Oh, Daisy, did you? Okay. The first Peter 2, 18 to 24. All right. So let's begin. Again, these are the passages that are normally cited by those who hold a view of pacifism as a result of their Christian faith, their fidelity to the Bible.
So we'll begin with you, Rebecca, if you would read Matthew 5, 38, 39. I would argue that this is probably the most cited and most commonly attributed passage to pacifism. This is words right out of the mouth of Jesus Christ.
This is in his Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon that's ever been preached in the history of man. And Jesus clearly says here that we are not to resist one who is evil. Now, just for a moment, I want to point something out about this passage.
Because oftentimes when you talk to a pacifist, and by the way, I guess it should be right to put my cards on the table quickly. I am not a pacifist, but I want to be fair to their position. I always try to be fair with folks I disagree with.
But in regard to this, having had conversations with pacifists and having had these engaged, one of the things they will say, well, we are allowed to resist to a certain point, such as escaping. Like, for instance, during the time of the Reformation, we're going to talk a little bit later about the Mennonite movement that came out of the Reformation.
And oftentimes they were under persecution from both sides. Both the Catholics and the Protestants had issues with what were known as the Anabaptists. And yet they were willing to run and hide. They were willing to protect themselves by virtue of escaping.
And if you apply the words of Christ here as absolute, when he says, do not resist the one who is evil, then even running away would be a form of resisting. Even locking your doors at night would be a form of resisting.
So I think that these passages do have to be understood within their context. And it is my personal conviction that these passages do not deny a person the right of personal protection. But it is easy to see how someone comes to those conclusions looking at a passage where Jesus says, do not resist a person who is evil.
But that's just engaging with the idea of even running away is a form of resistance. If you don't believe that, ask a police officer. If they try to arrest someone and the person runs away, what do they call it?
Resisting arrest. So even running away is a form of resistance. All right. 1 Thessalonians 5 .15. And this one dives deeper, I think, into the real issue. And the real issue is that of retaliation. Because he uses the word repay.
Or what was the word you used? Was it repay? Render. Render. Yeah. Do not render or repay evil for evil. So if you do something evil to me, my initial fleshly desire is to have revenge. Now, I didn't say your desire.
I said my desire. I'm not pointing at you. I'm pointing at myself. When someone does us wrong, our initial reaction is often to get our pound of flesh, to want to render our justice. Right? We talk about the term sometimes flippantly.
We talk about street justice. And that means we want to get back at somebody who did wrong. And Paul is clearly telling us here that we are not to seek to repay evil for evil. Romans chapter 12 goes even further into that idea.
Who is that? Mike, go ahead. Sounds very straightforward. Don't return evil for evil. There's one part of that, though, that is interesting. He says the phrase, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men.
I love that Paul added that, of course, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit because he reminds us the reality that it's not always we who have the problem. Oftentimes, people have the problem with us.
And so Paul is saying, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with all men. I don't know about you, but personally, I can think about people that I'm currently not at peace with, but it's not by my choice.
It's simply because I've had an incident with this person. They have refused to accept any apology that I've extended, or they've refused to accept any form of reconciliation that I've sought to provide.
And therefore, we're not at peace, but it's not because I'm unwilling, and I'm not perfect in any way. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal. I just honestly, I know there are people out there that have ought against me, and I've sought to reconcile, and they were unwilling.
I had a person one time tell me, and I've talked about this before, that they would never forgive me for something that I did. And it was an insult. I insulted them in a way that I didn't intend to do.
And that insult left a form of hatred that they said they were unwilling to ever forgive. I pray one day they would. But that's the idea, right, is that as far as it depends upon you, like the father of the prodigal son who stood on the porch prepared for his son to return, we seek to live at peace, but not everybody seeks to live at peace with us.
Daisy, finish us out in 1 Peter 2, please.
Yeah, when he was reviled.
So here the argument from the pacifist, the Christian pacifist, is that Christ himself underwent the punishment of the cross and did not revile. He did not argue back. He did not seek self-justification, and as a result, neither should we.
And again, I'm not making this argument. I'm saying this is what they would say based on this passage. They would say, if you are suffering unjustly, well, so did Jesus. And so if you're suffering unjustly, you should be willing to take it because Jesus was willing to take it.
In simplest terms, that's what they are arguing from this passage. So we can see that Christian pacifism is based upon several texts that do have to be understood and interpreted. And there is a wide variety within Christian pacifism as to how to understand even these texts.
There are those who would simply say that these passages call for nonviolence. Going back to here, they would say it makes us unable to use violence. However, we could still support, for instance, the government or whatever if it was at war.
But there are others who would say it makes us unable to participate at all. And therefore, there are some who would say that to be a Christian means you cannot be a police officer. It means you cannot be a soldier because those things would be participating in acts of violence.
I mean, is it possible to be a police officer and never engage in violence? I guess it's possible if you live in Mayberry. But most likely, if you're a police officer, at some point you're going to have to engage in some form of physical altercation.
And it seems like it's getting worse and worse all the time in that regard. So if you're non-participatory, that would mean you are unable to do those things. And those who believe that often are unwilling to participate in being either military or law enforcement.
We're going to get there. You're outrunning me because when we talk about the idea of participation in war, we have to say, is it right that the government participate in war? And that's where we're going to get to just war theory, which is our next part.
So that's a good question. I did want to say something about that, though. It's argued by some pacifists that the position of the church for the first 300 years, until the introduction of Augustine's theories, which Augustine was very influential in just war theory, it's argued by some that Christians were universally pacifists until the time of Augustine.
I don't believe that that's true, but that is argued by some. And I want to read a quote from Dr. Andrew Holt, who talks about this specific assertion. Even before I read this quote, understand what they're saying.
They're saying Augustine comes along in the 400s. So from the time of the cross to the time of Augustine, you have the first 100 years, which we would say is the apostolic era. So then you have a 300-year period, and that's the 300 years they're talking about.
So you have the 100s, 200s, and 300s up until the time of Augustine. They would say during this time no Christian served in the military, and they understood that it was wrong to do so. That's the argument, is that early church was anti any form of violence, and they were unwilling to serve in the military in any way.
So this is the point, this is the time period that the argument is coming out of. Andrew Holt has a good thought about this, and I want to share it with you. He says, a new framework needs to be established for the study of early Christian views of war that excludes the notion of pacifism.
With the exception of the historian Roland Bainton, writing 60 years ago, it is mostly modern theologians, ethicists, philosophers, and political scientists who have adopted the term with apparently few reservations.
And in doing so, they have co-opted alleged early Christian views to relate to modern issues. When examined through such a framework, such studies are more likely to be skewed historically, and these scholars would benefit from a careful, contextual, historically sensitive treatment of this topic.
So what's he saying? He's saying, why wouldn't they serve in the military in the first 300 years? Was it because they were opposed to violence, or was it because to serve in the military was to bow the knee to false gods?
See, the argument is we need to look at it contextually. Is the unwillingness of Christians in the first 300 years to serve in the military, is that proof that they were pacifists? Or was that proof that the military was something they could not support because of its positions on false gods?
And what we talked about this morning in my sermon, I know you guys weren't here, we talked about the fact that the early church was forced to either bow to Caesar or die. Would you bow and say Kaiser Koriath, right?
Well, if you're in the military, if you're in the Roman military, you're having to bow to Caesar. And the early church was not willing to do that. And so this is where the concept of taking one thing and saying, well, see, they didn't serve in the military, therefore they're pacifists, that's a non-sequitur.
One doesn't lead to the other necessarily. And so that's why Dr. Holt, he is a professor of history at Florida State College at Jacksonville, so he's here in town. And he makes the argument that we need to reevaluate the context of the early church before we use them as our basis for saying the early church was completely pacifist.
It could be rightly pointed out that it would have been very unusual for early Christians to serve in the military, since this was the primary agent of persecution and service required an oath of loyalty to Caesar that would violate their faith in Christ.
That's actually in our book, Dr. Ray's book, that's a quote from him. So he's agreeing with Holt on this issue, on saying using that first 300 years as the basis for all time is a skewed sample, basically.
It's a skewed sample, it's not able to hold water. One of the ways that we could respond to this would be to say that when John the Baptist and Jesus were faced with interactions with Roman soldiers, one thing we never see in the gospels is a call to repentance from soldiering itself.
In fact, one of the best examples of this would be when the soldiers came to John as he was baptizing and said, what should we do? And he said, don't take more than your pay, don't extort money and treat people fairly.
I'm forgetting exactly, but you know, the passage I'm talking about, he didn't say, oh, yeah, lay down your sword and stop being a soldier. That would have been the time to say it. That would have been the answer.
But he doesn't say stop soldiering. He says soldier in a way that is in keeping with right virtues. So there is a virtuous way to be a soldier that at least we can extrapolate that from the text. Now, I mentioned earlier that out of the Reformation came a group known as the Anabaptists.
The Anabaptists are often considered to be pacifists, even though the Amish would prefer the term non resistant to pacifism. They would prefer that term. And they would not deny that the sword is necessary.
They just deny that the Christian is able to participate in the use of the sword. This gets to kind of what you were talking about, Mike, with Romans 13. I said we're going to talk about a little bit more in part two.
But they would say, yes, there is a role for government and there is a role for the use of the sword in government. But Christians can't do that. That's got to be left to the non-Christians, which raises a tremendous ethical dilemma.
What would that be? We're giving the keys to the kingdom to unbelievers. We're saying that no believer can ever serve in those positions. And basically we're asking for protection from unbelievers. We're saying we want to give all that over.
In fact, one of the things and I may be wrong about this. So what I'm about to say is not meant to be taken as gospel truth. But I know that Amish, Mennonite and those groups are here in the United States.
One of the things that they are able to be here for is because they are protected by the government surrounding it. I don't know this, but I've never seen an Amish community in Iraq. They may be there.
I don't know if they're there. But it's interesting if a group of people is willing to be protected, but not willing to participate in that protection. Again, I'm not calling their integrity into question.
I'm just thinking logically. You're willing to receive the protection of the government, but you're not willing to participate in that protection. That seems somewhat interesting from an ethical issue by itself.
Okay, I'll let your son go and fight and die, but we're not going to go and fight and die or whatever. So that leads to another question. I want to read a quote from an article. This is from Paul Carter.
And he's talking about the Anabaptists. He says,. At which point, the leaders of the movement were tortured, killed, and displayed as a further deterrent against similar undertakings. This disaster led to a revolution within the movement under the leadership of figures such as Minnow Simons.
That's where we get the word Mennonite from. And from this point on, most of the streams within Anabaptist movement would be committed to some form of Christian pacifism. The original Anabaptist confession, known as the Sleightheim Confession, did not forbid the sword to the civil magistrate, even while it did encourage all true believers to abstain from participating in potentially violent occupations.
Article 6 of the Sleightheim Confession says,. The sword is ordained of God outside of the perfection of Christ. It punishes and puts to death the wicked and guards and protects the good. In the law, the sword was ordained for the punishment of the wicked and for their death.
And the same sword is now ordained to be used by the worldly magistrates. And that's a quote from the Sleightheim Confession. Ultimately, what this is talking about is a very important historical moment.
And that is the moment where the city of Munster was taken over by the Anabaptists. And that created a major political fallout. As a result, less than 100 years later, when the first Baptists were writing their Baptist Confession, which is actually the confession we use here at our church, the 1644 London Baptist Confession, one of the things it tried to do, and later the 1689 Confession, was to separate itself from the Anabaptists because the Anabaptists had created such a political fallout with their movement.
They were called radicals because of what they tried to do in Munster. We're not Anabaptists. We are not those guys. Because those guys did wrong, and we want to separate ourselves from them. But it's interesting to consider the fact that a movement which is now really equated with pacifism has this very violent moment in its history where it overthrew a city.
And out of that came this idea that pacifism is the key. So, again, traditionally now when we talk about the Anabaptists, we're considering the Mennonites and the Amish communities, though those are not the same.
The Mennonites, I think it's all Amish or Mennonites, but not all Mennonites are Amish, I think is the way that works. Again, I could be a little off on that, but I do believe they all hold to Mennonite or Anabaptist theology.
And traditionally, the Amish cannot serve in the military, law enforcement, or political office. There are splits and divisions among Mennonites and Amish groups, so no stance is likely to be found among all, but there is a general sense in which nonresistance is upheld.
Now, the Amish and Mennonites are not the only Christian pacifists. Christian pacifism is probably found in every denomination. In fact, who's the most famous pacifist Baptist? Anybody know? John Piper.
John Piper is a wonderful preacher, has preached the gospel for half a century. I mean, we may have some issues with him, I'm just saying in general, you know, he's generally well-received, but when he was asked about the subject of use of violence for personal protection, he said very clearly that he was unwilling to use violence to protect himself or even his family, and ultimately came to the conclusion that it would be better for him and his family to die at the hands of a violent person than to take the life of a violent person because it would be assumed that that violent person was unsaved and they would be consigning that person to hell, when if they killed them, they would simply have a free ticket to heaven and therefore they would be better off letting the violent man kill them than to kill him and he go to hell.
Yes, A .J. I remember the video specifically, I'll try to find it, maybe I could put it in this week's class notes, but I remember specifically him saying that, but I don't know when it was. Yeah, I think within the last four or five years, but he was specifically asked the question about protecting his family, because the question was about, I think it started talking about guns, would you use a gun, you know, no I don't use a gun, would you protect, no it would be better, we are going to go to heaven, we don't want to consign somebody to hell,.
It was his, I understand.
Yeah, it created a big kind of dust up when he said it, and again, I'm fine with him having a conviction, I just think that that conviction cannot be held over all believers, if that's his position, I say this, I teach, for those who don't know, I teach personal protection classes and I teach pistol classes, I'm certified with the National Rifle Association and I've taught pistol classes since 2008, so I've been around teaching firearms for a while now and in those classes I always tell people, if your conviction is that you don't have the right to protect yourself, then, well yeah, why did you come to this class, but in general, if that's going to keep you from using a gun in personal protection, the big fear I have is people buying guns to scare people, because there are people who will buy a gun just to present it, but not use it, and I say that's dangerous, if you pull a gun on someone just to scare them, you might scare them into shooting you, if they have a firearm, and so that's where that comes out in that class, because again, I've had people say, I just want to get it to scare the bad guy, I said, you know, that's not good, that's not good logic and it's not safe.
So, this takes us to the end of our portion on pacifism, as I said, there's pacifists in all denominations, as I said, John Babb is a good example of a Baptist, you could find them in other, and I would say often find them in more liberal leaning denominations, where violence is always seen as a bad thing, one of the things that tends to go along with liberalism is the idea that everything should be satisfied with words, and never violence, and everything could be talked out, and so, as I said, you'll find pacifism in many different areas.
So, now let's move to the just war theory. Just war theory begins with the notion that loving your neighbor supports the use of force under certain circumstances, and Augustine, as I said, writing in the 4th and 5th century, Augustine posed an ethical scenario, in which he argued one could biblically and justly make a point of violence, or engage in violence.
This is what he said, he said, imagine you came upon someone being beaten, and that person was about to be killed, would you be morally obligated to stand by idly, and not intervene, based on a commitment to non-violence?
How can one do so, and justifiably state that he is loving his neighbor, who is in distress? That's the scenario that Augustine gives us. You're walking by, you see a person who is being beaten within an inch of their life, you have a choice to make, do I intervene, do I not intervene, and is my not intervening, and allowing it to continue, a greater act of love, because I'm not engaging in violence, or is my intervening a greater act of love, even though it may require an act of violence, even if the act of violence was simply restraining the evil man, wrapping my arms around him, and falling onto the ground, and smothering him with my weight, or something like that.
I mean, you know, just saying that may be my only option, just grab him and fall down on top of him until the police come. But some would say that's an act of violence, because you've got to grab somebody to do that.
The advocate of just war theory would say that the passages normally cited by the pacifists, which we looked at earlier, regard retaliation, not protection. And I think this is a very important distinction.
If we go back and you examine those passages, and I invite you to do so, you'll notice that it's almost always, the prohibition is almost always pointing to retaliation. Even in Jesus' words, where he says, if a man strikes you on the right cheek, turn and give him the other also.
What is the idea here is if a man strikes you on the right cheek, your natural inclination is to strike him on his right cheek, rather than simply giving him the other cheek. So the idea is retaliation.
But if we carefully examine those passages which we discussed, we'll notice that what we don't find is we don't find life-threatening injuries. It's interesting when you study being struck on the right cheek, a strike on the right cheek is typically a backhanded slap and was a sign of disrespect.
Much like today, spitting in someone's face or calling someone a name or pushing someone is an act of disrespect. To come across this way, which would strike the right cheek of the person, would be a sign of insult.
And Jesus is essentially saying, when insulted, do not return with an insult. And again, the other passages can be addressed there as well. Moreover, and this is getting into what we brought up earlier, the government has been given the responsibility to protect its citizens.
If you want to write this verse down, Romans 13, verses 1 -4, talks about the government's responsibility to protect its citizens. It says in verse 1, 1. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God.
2. And those that resist have been instituted by God. 3. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed. 4. And those who resist will incur judgment. 5. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
6. Would you have no fear of one who is in authority? 7. Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. 8. For he is God's servant for your good. 9. But if you do wrong, be afraid. 10. For he does not bear the sword in vain.
11. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Notice that the passage says that the government is ordained. It's funny to think about, because we think about pastors being ordained.
It says the government is ordained as a minister of protection and punishment. Now, we can talk about terrible governments. We certainly deal with our own issues of terrible government oversight that we deal with now.
We could go back to the time that this was written and the time of Paul, and he certainly dealt with a bad government. But his point still stands, that there is a role for the government, and one of the roles is the role of protection.
I've talked about this before, but just to remind you all, that there are three spheres of authority that the Bible establishes. The first sphere of authority is the family. The second sphere of authority is the church.
And the third sphere of authority is the state, or the government. Within each of these spheres, there is a structure of authority within the family, father, mother, children. Within the church, there are elders, deacons, church members, what we would call an ecclesiastical.
This is familial, ecclesiastical, and civil. Civil authority would be the state. Now, different states have a different structure. What we have now, which is a representative republic, did not exist during the time of Paul and Peter, not in the form that it exists today.
And there are still people today who live under monocracies with kings. We live under, again, a democratic republic. However, there is still authority there, and the state has an authority and a responsibility.
And one of the responsibilities of the state is to protect its citizens, and it has the authority of the sword. Didn't it say that in Romans 13? It says it does not bear the sword for nothing or in vain.
Within the church, this is a fun exercise, within the church, is there protection? There better be. But the sword that is used for protection in the church is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
The elders are to teach and preach the Word of God to protect from false teaching and heresy, right? But there's still protection, right? Now we get to the home. Is there a responsibility in the home to provide protection?
I would say that there is, and I would cite a few passages just to point this out. Just to give you a few thoughts, there are several passages in the New Testament where we are told, for instance, where in Matthew 12, I don't have the exact address right off the top of my head, but in Matthew 12.
Oh, no, yeah, I do have it here on a different note. Matthew 12, 29, it says, How can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, and then he can plunder his house?
What is the insinuation in Jesus' example? A strong man protects his home, and you can't get into a strong man's home unless you bind him, because the strong man is responsible to protect his home and will protect his home if given the opportunity.
Luke 11, 21, this again is the words of Christ. He says, When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his goods are safe. Now, Jesus is not commanding that. He's saying that's understood. He's using that as an example.
It's well understood that a strong man, fully armed, protects his home. This is what we would call an axiomatic reality. It's just true. Jesus isn't saying it's good or bad. He's saying it is. This is what strong men do, and he's using it as an example for something else.
Luke 22, 36, Jesus, in talking to his disciples, says,. But now let the one who has a money bag take it, and likewise a knapsack, and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. That is a very disputed text as to what Jesus meant by a sword.
Some people believe that that sword was only for the protection against animals. I've heard that argument that it was only for animal attackers. However, people can be animals at times, so maybe that's a bad argument.
But I don't find much weight in that. Jesus tells his disciples that there is a place for a sword even for a person. But one passage, and I realize this is reaching back into the Old Covenant passages, and we have to be careful because, as I said earlier in the class, that we have to be careful how we apply Old Testament civil law to New Testament context.
But Exodus 22, 2, I used to have this printed on the back of a shirt, actually. Because Exodus 22, 2 says this, If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no blood guilt for him.
But if the sun rises on him, there shall be blood guilt for him. You say, well, what does that mean? Well, I think it's fairly obvious that what is being said is that if a person breaks into someone's home and in the act of breaking into the home they are struck and they die, the person who's defending his home is not guilty.
However, it says if the sun rises and he is struck, which means a period of time has passed between the act of stealing and leaving, and he is found and retaliation brings about his death, then there is punishment.
So, again, my argument is not that we are not allowed to protect ourselves, but that we are not allowed to retaliate. That's the point, is retaliation. And so how do we find justice? Well, that is, again, the role of the court.
That is the role of the government, to bring justice. If a person comes in, steals stuff out of my house and he runs away, I can't run after him and shoot him in the back. We still have rules for that, right?
But if a man comes into my house and he puts his hands on my wife and he's there and I'm there, then my role for her is to stand in the place as her protector. That's how I understand that passage. In the act of violence, I can protect my family.
Now, that being said, I want to say this, and this is important. Just War Theory states that the use of force is not a necessary evil, but is a moral good given the proper circumstances. Because you'll hear people say, well, I engaged in violence because it was a necessary evil.
No. According to Just War Theory, remember the person's being beat up, you have to go and help them. By going to help them, the act of violence becomes a virtuous act. Therefore, the use of force is not the lesser of two evils, but rather is a virtuous act if used to save a life.
I make this argument a lot because I believe in something called benevolent violence. Benevolent means an act of love. When you talk about God's benevolence, benevolent violence is to engage in a violent act out of love.
A good example of that, and you may think this is weird, so I hope you don't come at me too hard, spanking a child is an act of benevolent violence. Because the Bible says that if a child is not disciplined, that that child is not loved.
But I don't like spanking my children because when I do it, I am engaging in a form of violence. I'm striking them. I don't like to do that. But I understand that it is a type of love to extend the rod of correction onto the end of understanding.
The seat of it, what is it? Yeah, yeah. So that has to happen. Another, and I've talked about this and I've spoken on this before, CPR is a very violent act in the moment. You can break ribs, you can break the sternum, the body, but it's for benevolent.
You're beating on a person's chest for what purpose? To bring them to life, right? To give them back life. So the idea that all violence is evil, the idea that all violence is wrong, I think itself misses the important component of motivation.
What is motivating the act? And so that leads to my understanding of virtuous or benevolent violence. Now where just war theory becomes difficult is when it is applied to the concept of modern warfare.
And I will say this is probably one of the more difficult ethical conundrums in my mind because when we ask the question, when is war? Now we've moved from the individual personal to the idea of national, right?
The government has the right to bear the sword, we all agree, Scripture says that. But when does the government have the right to bear the sword? We all know that we're fixing to see again just a few days from now, 9 -11 is going to pass and we're going to have a moment where we have to be reminded of that horrible day when I know right where I was standing in a Publix, I was delivering bread for Marita Bread Company and pushing the bread boxes in, I heard someone say a plane had hit the building.
My immediate thought was that it was like a Cessna, you know, somebody had made a mistake and run into a building and that I had no idea it was a passenger airliner. And then of course the second plane hit, by the time I got back out to the truck, the second plane had hit and my wife was in a 15-story high-rise downtown Jacksonville.
She was working for Bell South at the time and my only thoughts was, you know, I want you out of that building, you know, our nation is under attack, you know, the Pentagon's hit, all these things are happening and all this is coming out in the moment.
So, the response becomes something has to be done, but what? And this is where the ethics of war really get difficult because it translates to a war with Iraq and the role of that war was to seek out weapons of mass destruction, which wherever your position is on that, was at least a very difficult situation because none were produced to the satisfaction of everyone.
We agree. So, this leads to the question of was that an ethical war and were the people participating in that doing wrong by participating or they, because they're under the authority of the government, have no say.
My son right now is in Germany. He serves in the United States Air Force and he serves at the behest of his leaders. He does what he's told because he raised his hand and he made an oath and he said I'm going to do what I'm told as long as it's according to the uniform, what's it called, yeah, the uniform code of military justice, right?
He has to obey. So, that's where this gets really difficult. I think a very good case can be made for a nation defending itself and I totally, as I've argued already, I believe in the person's personal right to protection.
I believe the nation's right to protect itself. But where we get into the question is the question of preemptive strikes and investigative wars such as seeking out weapons of mass destruction. Those become more difficult to be able to establish a biblical foundation for.
In Ray's book, he talks about the Six Day War which happened as a result of the Israelis knowing that they were about to be imminently attacked and so they fought, they did a first strike and they were able to in six days overcome their enemies.
He talks, again, I'm quoting this from memory now, but he basically says this is an example where someone might could say, well if you know someone's going to strike and you have every reason to believe that you're about to be, you know, if you know someone's going to break into your house and therefore you go out and stop them from making their way into your house, you haven't, you're still engaging in a form of protection, you're still engaging in a defensive act, not an offensive act.
But you see where this becomes really difficult. And then the next level is the level of authority. For instance, the Revolutionary War where we fought for our independence from Great Britain. And when we fought for our independence, were we violating Romans 13 which says that we are to submit to the authorities over us.
I see you shaking your head and I'm not telling you what to think, I'm telling you this is where just war theory is more complicated the further down we go on the issues of what constitutes real protection, what constitutes first strikes, what constitutes those types of things.
I believe Romans 13 does make an allowance for the expectation that the government will do what is right because it talks about them being a minister of good and a minister of God, that when the government doesn't do right, I think that its citizens do have the right to speak to the government, to call the government to repentance because it is a minister of God according to that text.
So I see those things as being possible. There's something called the doctrine of the lesser magistrate and that means that there are authorities that are here and then there are authorities that are here.
So for instance, a good example, your son is, several of your sons are police officers and so they are magistrates and they have magistrates above them, they have leaders and then they have leaders, they have the governor and then you have the president.
Let's say the president makes an unjust law. I believe it is right to appeal to the next authority, which would be the governor, to seek that he would oppose that law on our behalf. That's the doctrine of the lesser magistrate.
Even the police officer who may be the one coming, I appeal to him to do right, even if he's been ordered by his authority to do evil. You see, that's how that works, that doctrine of lesser magistrate.
So you see how this begins to really get down to the issues. The issue of just war theory is a wide subject and one that can bring up a lot of questions. The question of should we have dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War?
And by doing so, did more lives get saved than would have been saved in a ground assault? See, that's where those questions arise. And again, I'm not always seeking to give you answers. I'm just showing you how we can make some basic statements.
The government has the right of the sword to protect its citizens and that's good. By extension, the individual, I think, has the right. We're going to talk about this a little bit more after the break.
How does that work? But at the end of the day, there are things which are certainly unethical in war. We know this because there's something called the Geneva Convention. What is the Geneva Convention?
It's to say there are certain things that are unethical, things like torture. You know it's illegal to use hollow point bullets in war? We don't use hollow point bullets in the military. They're all full metal jacket because hollow points are considered to be cruel and unusual.
Oh, absolutely. And I would say they're safer because a hollow point bullet is designed to open and slow down inside the wound cavity, making the wound cavity worse, but it's safer because it doesn't have the potential of traveling through and hitting a non-participating person, somebody behind the target.
But isn't that interesting that even a hollow point bullet is not allowed? Read something here on the Geneva Convention, then we're going to break. The Geneva Convention was a series of international diplomatic meetings that produced a number of agreements, and particularly the humanitarian law of armed conflict, a group of international laws for the humane treatment of wounded or captured military personnel, medical personnel, and non-military civilians during war or armed conflict.
The agreements originated in 1864 and were significantly updated in 1949 after World War II. And the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States says this, excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.
And that's referring to our citizens. So even our government recognizes that there are acts of violence that would be unethical. There are acts of war that would be unethical. So just war theory does not justify all war.
We have to understand. All we're simply saying is the Bible does not forbid the use of violence for protection. All right, so let's take a break. We'll come back in five. But yeah, it didn't work out this year.
All right, guys, so last thing on this subject, and again, this is a subject that I could talk about all night long, especially the concepts of different war issues and what makes for just war and things like that.
But this last part is dealing with personal protection and defense. This is a step beyond just war theory because in the classic scenario with Augustine, the justification is always that you're protecting someone else.
However, what happens if I'm the person being beaten? See where that changes a little bit, right? If I see Rebecca being assaulted and I protect Rebecca, everyone would say that's right because I protected her, right?
But if I'm the one who is under assault, do I have the responsibility to simply take it or do I have the ability to respond? That's where this changes from the classic example of just war theory to a more personal example.
And some might claim, and I would not argue against this claim too much, some might claim that I have too much personal bias to teach this portion. I have 25 years. Actually, I'm going on to 30 years.
I wrote this years ago, but next year is my 30th year in the martial arts. I started karate in 1994, so I'm celebrating 30 years next year. I have black belts in multiple systems, including karate and modern arnis, which is a stick-and-knife fighting art.
I'm certified by the National Rifle Association to teach pistols, personal protection in the home, personal protection outside the home, and I'm certified by Saber International to teach pepper spray.
I've done a lot in all these years. I really believe in my responsibility to protect my family and to protect myself. I started an organization called Kodiak Life Protection Systems where I actually certified instructors under me.
So I have done quite a bit. I've spoken on this subject to various locations. I did a whole church. I certified a whole church in concealed carry. The pastor hired me, paid me a flat fee, and I came in and did.
Everybody in the church got certified concealed carry. We lined people up to shoot. It was like 50 people deep, and they just came out, bang, bang, bang. It was just wild. So I've been around this for a long time.
So as I said, some people might think that I have too much of a bias, but I would say I can at least speak from a position of a person who has had to justify what I do with my faith. So at least I'm not speaking from a theoretical perspective.
I'm coming at this from at least a position of having had to think through it. The first thing I want to consider is that we have already agreed that the Bible clearly gives the government the ability to protect its citizens.
That's why it doesn't bear the sword in vain. It has a role to bless the good and to punish evil and doesn't bear the sword in vain. So personal protection can be seen as an extension of the government's authority.
You say, what do you mean by that? Well, the government is allowed to stop evil people by the use of force, and some see personal protection as an individual being temporarily given the authority of the state to act in protection on his own behalf.
This is why acts of self-defense are normally justifiable in court. Now, not always, because some states have almost made it impossible to defend yourself. But in general, there is still a law of self-defense or personal protection because the person is doing essentially what the state would have done had the state had the ability to do it.
And the old joke is this. It says, I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop. I can't have a police officer on me all the time, so I have a way to protect myself as if a police officer were there doing that job for me.
So, here's the two examples. Example number one. If a person is being beaten and a police officer comes, intervenes, and the policeman acts in a violent way, he is justified as an agent of the state. Example two.
If a person is being beaten and he intervenes for himself, he too, in that moment, is acting as an agent of the state because he's protecting himself in the way that the state would if the state had the ability.
I'm not saying this is the best argument. I'm saying this is one argument for personal protection, is that you're doing essentially what the state would do if the state could do it, but because the state can't be everywhere all at one time, you get to be deputized in the moment to do this thing.
And don't we talk about that? When a person protects another person, they say that that person was acting, in a sense, as an agent of protection because they have the right to do that. The state gives them that right.
Therefore, the argument is that because the state has the right to protect individuals, that individuals have the right to protect themselves. So the question becomes, is the person who protects himself against a violent person sinning?
And even with that, there are levels to that question because we could ask the question, when we place locks on our doors, are we engaging in personal protection? Yeah, absolutely, right? If we walk in groups everywhere we go or we practice situational awareness or we carry a flashlight, are we engaging in personal protection?
We are. If a person swings at us and our natural instinct is to raise our arms to protect our head, are we not engaging in a form of personal protection? We are. Most people, even genuine pacifists, would not deny those things as being reasonable.
I remember years ago, there was a man in this church who was unhappy with my preaching. It's never happened since. Just kidding. But there was a man who was very unhappy with my preaching. He did not like the theology, and so he started to try to find a way for me to leave.
So he came up with an interesting idea. It was during a board meeting. We used to have a general board. This was before the elders were really leading the church. This was back when we had a little different governmental structure.
And we were sitting in a board meeting, and he said, I know what I think we should do. I think we should cancel karate. Again, my karate class, I've taught here at the church ever since 2005. So the karate class has been around for a long time.
And he said, I think we should cancel karate. Now, the reason behind it was he wanted me to leave, and he thought by canceling karate, somehow I'd get mad and leave. Like that was what was keeping me here.
It wasn't, but that was his ignorant motivation. But I asked him. I said, why do you think we should cancel the karate program? He says, because you teach people how to fight, and fighting is wrong. That was his answer.
And I said, well, I said, just to be clear, there is a difference between fighting and self-defense. Fighting is the engagement of two people mutually desiring to hurt one another, and they engage willfully in the act of violence.
We call that fighting. And if you've never been a part of one, I used to work as a security officer for First Coast High School. I did that for two years while I was in seminary, and my job was to break up fights.
And I can tell you, they're no fun, but it's two people engaging willfully in the act of violence. I said, there's a difference between that and self-defense. And the difference between fighting and self-defense is in self-defense, there is always an attacker and a defender.
And the defender's desire is to not be part of the altercation, but to stop the altercation and get away as quickly as possible. I said, and karate is based on one simple premise, and that is karate nesinte nashi, which is Japanese for there is no first strike in karate.
That's what that means. It simply means that karate is for defense only. That it is not made for willfully two people engaging in combat, but it is made for personal protection or self-defense. I said, so are you opposed?
Remember, I'm still in this engagement. I said, are you opposed to self-defense? And he says, well, I don't like that you're teaching karate, I don't like you're teaching people to fight. I said, I just told you, I'm teaching self-defense, and I do make a distinction.
I said, are you opposed to self-defense? He said, well, I guess I am. I said, do you own a gun? He said, yes, I do. I said, if a man broke in your house to hurt your wife, would you use the gun to defend yourself?
And he said, yes, I would. I said, you are a hypocrite. Because if the difference is me using my hands to defend myself versus you using a gun to defend yourself somehow makes you virtuous and me evil, then you're saying that the tool is what makes it virtuous or evil, or the method versus the motivation.
See the argument here. So having said all that, I simply am making the point that when we talk about personal protection, we do have to bring it down to what is our motivation. And I have to say this also.
I'm actually not against sport fighting. As long as it's two people that are engaged in an activity. Because I think sport fighting and like boxing and football and things like that can be done in a way that there is no evil or malice or hatred.
You may disagree, and we can have a conversation about that. But when I talk about what I'm talking about here, I am specifically addressing the subject of self-protection, personal protection. I believe we have the right to personal protection.
And I do believe from a biblical position, which we talked about earlier, Exodus 22, Luke 22, Matthew 12, and Luke 11, that we can make an argument that there is an assumption that men will protect their homes and by extension protect themselves.
So this leads to, well, I guess I could ask the questions. Anybody have anything to add or subtract from that? Maybe a question. It's a lot to consider. Longer story. He tried, remember I told you there was a time where I had a group try to have me fired over Calvinism, and they started a petition to have me removed?
He was part of that group. He thought karate was a way to get me out. And so when that didn't work, he moved on to something else. But no, he eventually left. AJ, you were going to ask a question? Everything.
As we draw to a close, because my next thing, I was going to give a conclusion, but before I do, go ahead.
This is regarding the fact.
Yes, absolutely. And just in case anybody doesn't know, Marcion was an early church heretic who took parts of the Bible out that he disagreed with. So that's what you're talking about with Marcionism is the idea that we're going to put aside certain parts.
That's true because there are obviously certain parts of the Bible that glorify the act of protecting a nation. You know, Saul has killed his thousands. David has killed his ten thousands, right? And he was considered heroic for it.
One of the greatest stories in Genesis that is often forgotten about is when Abraham went to protect Lot when he was kidnapped. Remember when Lot was kidnapped and Abraham took his men and went and fought valiantly and brought Lot back?
There is so much in the Bible that would promote the idea of the strong man who protects his home, the strong man who protects his self and his family, and the nobility of soldiering, fighting. I think one of the issues that we have is I think we really do effeminize Christ and we create a Jesus who would never have any action of violence, and yet the book of Revelation pictures Christ in chapter 19 coming on a white horse with a sword of God coming out of his mouth and slaying his enemies.
But that's not the picture people want of Christ. Exactly. So even in his humanity there were acts which today, I mean if somebody came into a church flipping over tables, people would probably have that person arrested.
Yeah. So yeah, good thought there too. But yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good point.
Yes? That would insist like they're not infallible. They wouldn't have to aim for their infallibility. Amen.
That's true. A lot of times they will argue for the early church as being this sort of one, they argue the early church as if it's a monolithic group, and it's not, because there's not uniformity of thought and conviction, and they argue as if they have all knowledge when a lot of them are dealing with not having the whole Bible in their hand, because, again, this is a time where you guys did the How We Got the Bible series.
Remember, that's also the period where the Bible is still being understood as what it is and put together, and it isn't until the third or fourth century that they have whole Bibles that we could see as being what we would call now the canon.
So yeah, that's a good point too. Absolutely. Well, let me, if no one else has anything else, I'll give you my last thoughts here. Does your conscience forbid you from using any violence? If you remember a few weeks ago, I talked about the fact that sometimes our conscience binds us further than the Scripture, and if so, whether it's correct or not biblically, you are bound by your conscience.
If your conscience won't allow for personal protection, self-defense, then that's fine, but I do not believe that the Bible forbids us from ever using force, as it can be virtuous, and it can save lives.
I do not believe it forbids service in law enforcement or military. If that were the case, we would have no hope of ever having any godly man or woman in those positions, and so it is in my estimation that we should pray that God would raise up godly men and godly women in positions like that.
Specifically, I would say for war, godly men only. I don't believe in women in combat, but that's an ethical conversation for another day, because that will take us another hour to get through. I remember I had a real deep argument with a guy.
It was during a Dads and Dudes. We have a men's meeting, because I don't believe that women should be drafted. I believe that men, if there's the need to serve the country and it's legitimate, that men should be able to be selected for service, but I don't believe women should be.
I believe the men's role is to protect, and the wife's role is to be protected, and the woman's role is to be protected. So that's a whole other side of that that we could discuss another time. But he got mad at me because I said women shouldn't be drafted.
Well, they do it in Israel. That was his argument. They do it in Israel. I said, they do a lot of things in Israel. I don't know what happened in America. That's not going to be my position is they do it in Israel.
All right. Well, next week we are going to move on to a we have two more ethical subjects. The next week is sexual ethics, and then we are going to look at money ethics. That will be Classes 6 and 7.
And then our last class is up to you. So I'm going to give you some homework. First, you are going to get another quiz this week. It will only be a few questions just like the last one, but please go over the quiz when you receive it.
You'll probably get it around Tuesday or Wednesday. Also, I want you to write down a subject either that we haven't covered in class or something that we have covered but you want to cover deeper because Class 8 is your class.
And this involves online students as well. You can email me a subject that you want us to address in class, and we will. And last time we did this, we had an array of things that we went over in that final class.
Using the principles we've discussed in class, how do we come to conclusions? So please take the time, write those down, and be ready to provide those to me next week. That will give me two weeks to prepare for our final class.
All right? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time that we've had to study together. Pray that you would be glorified in our study, and most of all, Lord, that we would be closer conformed to the image of Christ through all of this in his name.
Amen.
