----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2005 8:52 PM Subject: Re: Peaceful change
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 11:25:07 -0500, Dan Minette wrote > > > Actually, the definition of a good guy is anyone who wants to live > > in peace and freedom and would be willing to let his neighbor do the > > same. That's not really that bad of a definition. > > Whose definition is it? Yours? Bush's? Mine? Bush's. > > had to seek peace at the barrel of the gun, I don't see how we can > > automatically declare all such views evidence of bad theology. > > I haven't said that I think Bonhoeffer's theology is bad. I know Bonhoeffer's > theology and George Bush is no Bonhoeffer. But, Bonhoeffer sought peace through a bomb...which is the same as seeing peace at the barrel of a gun. There are times when Gandhi's techniques are best, there are times when Bonhoeffer's are. > > But, it was faith in human institutions. It was faith in the power > > of human law. By doing things the right we, we somehow evoke God's > > power and everything turns out for the best. > > That's rather ambiguous, isn't it. Whose definition of "best?" Ours or > God's? Ours...or theirs. We cannot know God's will well, but scripture does give us some clues. The God I know does not want innocence to suffer, He "so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten Son." It would be best if people were not tortured and murdered. I don't think one could say that this is simply earthly thinking, out of touch with God's will. > I heard a news item about a Marine regiment in Iraq that had a large >number of churches praying for it, and none of their troops were killed >or suffered amputations. All that prayer worked, the report said. Does >this mean that our prayers for Wes didn't "work?" What were they praying >for, exactly? I'd guess "safe return." >and is the survival of all of those Marines proof that prayer works? No. I wrote earlier that this was bad theology....that we can somehow influence/control God's will. I believe that God loved Wes just as much as the people in the regiment that survived virtually unscathed. I also believe that God loved European Jews during the 1940s. I believe that God is involved in the world but doesn't intervene in the way the people who claimed that their prayers worked think he does. >How can prayer, which is based in faith, ever be proven? If prayer works in such a manner then, one can look at the differences in survival rates for, say, cancer patients who are prayed for and those who are not. But, we have such proof. The lack of such proof, requiring faith, supports my understanding of prayer as dealing with changing our own hearts instead of changing God's mind. > As far as I'm concerned, things worked out for Wes's company, which > had a lot of losses, for the best, too, as long as we make the best of >it, trusting that God redeems all. I wouldn't phrase it quite that way. I really don't see every outcome as being for the best. I see God as making us free; which requires the potential for bad things happening. It would have been better if Bonhoeffer's bomb had gone off and millions of Jews were not killed...or if the other European powers and the US stopped Hitler early. God's will was not that Hitler came close to exterminating German Jews (2/3rds killed). But, it does appear to be God's will to give us the chance to stop it, and to not directly intervene if we chose not to. I agree with Bonhoeffer, we were called to stop Hitler, and chose not to. But, I will be more than willing to accept as faithful Christians pacifists who think we were not called in this manner. > There was nothing in the six-point plan that claimed that God was >behind it or that it would surely work. It was presented with churches >behind it in hope of success and under a moral imperative to try all other >alternatives before going to war. It would be helpful for you to tell me why you differ with my differentiation between hope and wishful thinking. If Hussein stayed in power through a massive defeat, very strong sanctions, and allied control of most of his air space, then it is not reasonable to think that an unenforceable legal proceeding in the Netherlands would work when stronger actions have not. This is not what I call Christian hope. Is one required to try alternatives that have virtually no chance of working? Is one suppose to not use one's gifts of intellect and observation to determine probabilities of success by various techniques. Isn't someone who proposes an alternative required to give support for her argument, in terms of reason and fairly detailed analysis of history? > > But, in a world where theological > > understanding about the consequences of war and inaction in the face > > of dictators > > I feel angry when anyone bring up "inaction" or "doing nothing," etc., in this > thread. Nobody is suggesting doing nothing. OK, not doing anything that has any reasonable chance of removing Hussein. Look, _I_ advocated not doing anything that had a reasonable chance to remove Hussein, so I do not see myself as pointing fingers elsewhere....I'm including myself among those who have to acknowledge the moral cost of not invading.. I advocated continuing to contain him. I accepted that the odds of him staying in power if the path I suggested were taken was very high. This may be a good place to point out that this type of argument closes off chances of dialog. When I put my best understanding forth, it seems that I'm accused of opposing Christian virtues. This is exactly what happened to me at my church...I just needed to be a better Christian and I would see things their way. >But there are times when something seems terribly wrong by human standards, You've given this comparison a few times. There are times when I do see a disconnect between God's standards and human standards. But, "genocide is bad" is not one of those times. I think genocide is wrong by God's standards. I think the way Hussein controlled his country was not just wrong by human standards. You called it evil yourself, so it appeared that you accept that his actions were inconsistent with God's standards also. >but God asked us to let events unfold, rather than insisting on unfolding them our way. OK, can you tell me how to discern this? When, according to our best understanding, we have an opportunity to decrease human suffering and death, when does God call us to let things unfold instead, increasing human suffering and death? When does God call us to say no when people ask for help? I'm not saying that we are always called to intervene...I didn't think we were in Iraq. But, I accept that I must give an answer to that type of question. Hard moral questions are for everyone. > control gets us in plenty of trouble, partly because we imagine that we are in > control! The presumption that only we, the United States, can minimize the > harm being done by a dictator, easily leaves God out of the picture (or worse, > makes Him a cheerleader for us, pro-war, pro-rich, etc.). So, if we use reason to see who has the capacity to physically stop a dictator and the short list has one name, then it's presumptuous to trust reason. How else do we know? How does this leave God out of the picture. How would God have removed Hussein, besides calling humans to do so? God is not a deus ex machina. We do not have to be control freaks to decide that acting in this particular case is within our power and that it is better to intervene than not. >When, how and to what degree to intervene is rarely clear, but that does >not change a deep presumption against war. To reduce the uncertainty to >non-interventionism is unfair. But, that's not what I am doing. I can understand the rational behind such a presumption. But, I do not accept denying that the result of not going to war would be that Hussein would stay in power for the foreseeable future. > > we cannot count on > > God to intervene because we eschew violence ourselves. > > Good heavens, Dan, we can *always* count on God to intervene, my faith tells > me. Without God's constant, total involvement, all of creation would come to > a halt and we would cease to exist. I believe that God is involved in the world. Intervention is word I reserve for direct actions that supercedes the normal order of things. For example, if the Nazi's suddenly found that their guns didn't work and lost the war without another shot needing to be fired, that would have been an obvious intervention. >The question is not whether God is involved, the question is what God is asking of us as the body >of Christ. That wasn't the question I was asking. The question is whether it was faith to believe that, if we act is manner X, God would change the course of the river (metaphorically). I don't think that is sound theology. >Do you believe that God is constantly involved, constantly present? Yes, but I do not believe that God that changes things because we want him to. I tend to agree with the Jewish idea that we are living in God's Sabbath (an idea that Jesus obliquely refers to). >Do you believe that sometimes we need to intervene because God isn't doing so? I think that we are called to intervene sometimes and that God's involvement in the world is calling us to do his will some times. I think that God is involved in the world, but doesn't intervene. One way of phrasing it is to count on God to work wonders to get us out of having to deal with a moral dilemma is putting God to the test. My entire point is that we must face the moral dilemmas that challenge us, not deny them. > > No, but it was sold as a plausible alternative. There is no > > evidence that it was. How does it differ from the actions at my > > church that I described? > > No evidence? What evidence was given that this had a chance of removing Hussein from power? >Do you believe that we are obligated to take seriously the voice > of the majority of Christians around the world? Well, the Catholic church's position was much more nuance than you make it. After the war started, the Vatican stated that they disagreed with Bush on going to war, but that was more a tactical difference, as I quoted them saying in an earlier post. . _ I_ disagreed with Bush, remember? The point I'm making is that there are moral problems with either the choice to go to war or not go to war. We had pushed methods short of war about as far as they could be for 11 years. There were strong economic sanctions. The British and the Americans controlled the air space over about 60% of Iraq. I thought that continuing this was a difficult choice that made me feel very uncomfortable in allowing the torture and murder to continue when I was a citizen in a nation that could stop it. > Would you agree that democracy is a good system not because people are good, but because >we have such capacity for wrong-doing? There are two points the founding fathers had about this (I may not phrase this quite correctly, so I'll stand correction on it). 1) By not restricting sovereignty to a small group, we allow citizens be able to promote and protect their own interests. 2) Through a system of checks and balances the narrow selfish interests of one group provide a check on other groups. >When the majority of churches and Christians around the world are telling us that what we are about to >do is wrong, and leaders that represent a huge number of them present an alternative, how >can you say there is no evidence? The group who proposed the 6-point plan was not the majority of churches. The Presbyterian who was among them had no authority to speak for Presbyterians, for example. The majority of churches stated they were against going to war, as I was.. but I don't remember a church survey on the likelihood of Hussein being removed from power by anything short of war. We do know that among the leaders of those who have made it their life's work to study such questions, there was agreement that measures short of war were not likely to topple Hussein....just as there was significant disagreement over whether Bush's actions were wise. Going back to churches, I'm pretty sure the Pope didn't think that an unenforced legal pronouncement would affect Hussein. If you want to talk about the majority of Christians: the majority is Catholic (about 60%). So, it is safe the say the church that is the home of most Christians felt that the disagreement over the 2nd Iraq war was a disagreement in tactics, not a fundamental disagreement in aims and goals. Finally, let me restate my basic premise. I think the example given by the Catholic church is a good one for those who opposed the war. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
