From the WSJ Opinion Archives
HOUSES OF WORSHIP
The War Theology
Churches differ over the invasion of Iraq.
War is hell. But is it a sin? At the moment, this simple question divides American churches in interesting ways.
The Catholic Church, of course, relies on "just war theory" to arrive at its judgments about the rightness of any military action. The theory, as developed by Saint Augustine and later Thomas Aquinas, holds that war is justifiable if it meets certain criteria--if it is waged for a just cause, is aimed at limited goals, has a reasonable chance of success and uses military means proportional to the threat it is responding to. America's action in Afghanistan met these criteria, according to church leaders, but war in Iraq is another matter.
Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, head of the U.S. military archdiocese, recently wrote a telling letter to Catholic chaplains. There he argued that the "very least" the president must do before committing troops to Iraq is to get a consensus of "the world community" and provide "convincing evidence" of a "serious and imminent threat." He clearly felt that Mr. Bush had failed to do any of this yet.
Belleville, Ill., Bishop Wilton Gregory, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote an open letter to President Bush taking an even stronger stand. "How many more innocent people," he asked, will "suffer and die" in a pre-emptive American attack? (In an interview he admitted that some just-war questions can be properly answered only after a war has been fought.)
Meanwhile the pope has hinted that he prefers inspections over war, and the foreign minister of the Vatican, Jean-Louis Tauran, has said that military action should not be taken outside of the auspices of the United Nations.
The judgment of American's Southern Baptists is quite different. Richard Land, the president of their Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, feels that war on Iraq is indeed justified. His open letter to the president, written with four other religious leaders, argued that a pre-emptive attack on Iraq would meet the criteria for a just war. "We are confident," the open letter stated, "that our government, unlike Hussein, will not target civilians."
Mr. Land explained in a phone interview that the key biblical passage is Romans 13:4. That passage, which concerns obedience to civil authority, reads in part: "If thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."
Christians are bound by society's laws, Mr. Land said, but have the right to expect the proper authorities to mete out justice and also to provide military protection. "For me, as an American citizen," he added, the proper civil authority "is not the U.N. It is the Congress of the United States."
The Methodists, as one might expect, beg to disagree. "I don't know whether they are a Christian body at all," says Jim Winkler, a leading ethicist for the United Methodist Church, referring to the Southern Baptists. "It seems like they are a war church."
The Methodists, evidently, are not a war church. But are they a "just war church"?
Mr. Winkler says there is some debate about that. In 2000, the church's governing board added language to its guiding principles acknowledging that war is, occasionally, justifiable. But "we believe war is incompatible" with the teaching of Jesus Christ, Mr. Winkler states. Methodists are "situational pacifists." He cites Psalms 120:7: "I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war."
By this reasoning, Christians should see war as an absolute last resort, and the U.S. is far from that point, in the Methodist view. Saddam Hussein isn't massing troops on his borders, observes Mr. Winkler. "His neighbors haven't requested help warding off an attack," and his military might "can't reach the United States." Methodists pray for Saddam's removal, Mr. Winkler says, but America's policies are not beyond moral doubt either. People "have died because of sanctions."
Mr. Winkler notes that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney are Methodists and should therefore accept his arguments. Neither seems inclined to.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.
