War, Peace, and Reconciliation

A Theological Inquiry

Weber

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781498218566
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

War, Peace, and Reconciliation invites Christians and the churches into a conversation over how to think about war from a standpoint in faith. It asks how reconciliation, which is central to Christian life and doctrine, can engage the realities of war without surrendering its fundamental affirmations. It defines these realities politically by discussing the meanings of power, peace as a particular organization of power, and the international system. The study of war and politics is unavoidable, as is the engagement with reconciliation, because all human existence and activity exist in the context of the gracious work of God to renew and reconcile the fallen creation. The inquiry is theocentric and christocentric. It culminates in a call to the churches to examine all their practices in the light of this perspective.

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The Problem: How to Think as Christians about War and Peace

It is fun and inspiring to sing, “Ain’t gonna study war no more!” Regrettably it is no kind of guidance for Christian responsibility in the world. Christians are called to work for peace. To do that they must “study war”—not in order to make war, but to find out why it occurs and to learn how to bring its motives and energies under control. But first of all, to study war and peace they must discern the contours of reality disclosed by their Christian faith, and with that theological understanding begin to investigate the demands and challenges of war and the promises of peace. Note the order: First, establish the theological method and context. Second, armed with that knowledge make the inquiry into the political setting and historical occasion of war. That combination will constitute the study of war—and demonstrate the paths to and prospects for peace.

A study of that sort was the idea supporting an international, indeed intercontinental, conference titled “Theology, Politics, and Peace,” held at Emory University and the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, Georgia, in April 1988. The focus of the conference was a critical interaction among three Christian approaches to political understanding and peacemaking, each of them highly influential, and each originating on a different continent. Professor Jürgen Moltmann represented German political theology, Professor José Míguez Bonino spoke for Latin American liberation theology, and I was asked to interpret the American tradition of Christian Realism in relation to the other two positions.1

The choice of political theology and liberation theology, and of their two representatives, was self-evident, given the contemporary prominence and influence both of the movements themselves and of their eminent and distinguished spokespersons. The inclusion of the American tradition of Christian Realism in a conversation with German political theology and Latin American liberation theology raised some eyebrows, mainly because many adherents of these other positions see it—whether rightly or wrongly—as an ideological defender of the entrenched powers of which they are strenuous critics. For them, Reinhold Niebuhr is more likely the enemy than a theological ally. Nevertheless, the inclusion of this third position required no justification. Niebuhr’s Christian Realism directly and substantively engages the problems of war and peacemaking, and does so from a Christian theological stance. It is an older theopolitical tradition than the other two. Mίguez Bonino studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York when Reinhold Niebuhr was a faculty member there, and Moltmann reported that the first book he read of (what he called) “dogmatic theology” was Niebuhr’s Nature and Destiny of Man.2 Niebuhrian realism continues as a potent intellectual and political force even today. Presidents Carter and Obama, among many others prominent in American politics and journalism, have been and are readers of Niebuhr. Theologians with profound objections to some aspects of Niebuhr’s thought find that they must wrestle with him, and not simply ignore him. Hence the necessity and authenticity of including Christian Realism in the conversation.3

However, this book is not a defense of Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism, nor is it a continuing analysis and critique of the other positions represented. It is an exploration of the theology of reconciliation, showing how even war, with its massive destruction and unrelenting cruelty, is a proper object of reconciling ministry, and how the theology itself is developed and illuminated by this engagement. It expounds and demonstrates a particular Christian theological stance. It includes also a substantive investigation of the political context of war, of power as substantial and relational, of peace as an organization of power, of the historic transition from a European state system to a genuinely international system. As I stated earlier, first the theology, then the political analysis, with both essential in combination in any Christian thinking about war and peace. In these respects it remains within the purpose of the conference, which was to consider the interrelationships of theology, politics, and peace.

Preliminary Observations on Reconciliation

In a subsequent chapter I shall explore the meanings of reconciliation more fully. Here I want to offer some preliminary thoughts on what it is and is not. Reconciliation in the fundamental theological sense employed in this book is God’s work—the movement of divine grace through history, engaging all the aspects of brokenness and promise, and reaching its climax of fulfillment and disclosure in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the renewal of the fallen creation according to its original divine intention, the recovery of the human purpose of imaging God in caring for God’s creation, and of working cooperatively in doing so. With this grand coverage it includes the conflicts of nations, which are aspects of the fallen creation and manifestations of its disruption.

Reconciliation, explained thusly, is in its initiative and history God’s work, not primarily and essentially a human work. Nevertheless, it is also—and in consequence—a human work. Just as human beings were created by God to “care for the garden,” so too are they called by God to share in the work of recovering and renewing the same garden disrupted and spoiled by human sin. The special work of Christians is to disclose the existence and the power of this process, and to share in it. In point of faith, they know that in following their calling they are grounded and guided in this gracious history of God. Just what kind and degree of reconciliation they can achieve are problems to be worked through in this book.

At this point, let us attempt some further clarifications. First, reconciliation is a corporate concept before it is an individualistic or interpersonal concept. Primarily that is because God’s work of healing and recovery is for the whole of the fallen creation, not just for individual persons or their fractured relationships. In both its divine and human dimensions it is a community-building enterprise, striving toward the realization of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community.” But also it recognizes the social nature of human beings—they are persons emergent and embedded in social institutions and groups, and often defined by them. Those who reach out to each other from divergent social locations never are fully empowered to be reconciled until the effects of these societal barriers are overcome. Hence the necessity of defining reconciliation primarily (but not exclusively) in terms of societal transformation and inclusiveness.

Second, theologically guided reconciliation is a matter of contextual discernment, not of method. Methods of encounter and transformation certainly are important, but they are not fundamental to the vocation of reconciliation. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 and threatened Saudi Arabia, the United States and its gathered allies made plans to expel the Iraqis by military force. At that time, a group of persons of Christian inspiration offered a counterproposal: “Let us try reconciliation,” they urged, “not war.” I had serious doubts as to the adequacy of their political analysis, but I was troubled even more by their theology. Their proposal was to try reconciliation, which implied that reconciliation is a technique or procedure—presumably nonviolent—that holds unusual promise of greater effectiveness in resolving the conflict in a truly constructive and healing manner, but is not yet recognized for its relevance to the problem being addressed by material and damaging forms of power. Viewed thusly, reconciliation is a sometime thing, a religious “specialty,” left out of usual deliberations and brought in only when things get really bad—and seem probably hopeless. Moreover, given this understanding, it is the specifically Christian way to engage the threatening and destructive realities of war.

I contend, however, for the relationship of reconciliation to war as that of a context of discernment, not that of a special and superior method of resolution. The context is the comprehensive working of divine grace to overcome the disruptions in human society, and especially the disruptive, destructive, and idolatrous phenomenon of military struggle. What is discerned in the primary sense is the working of grace to set the struggle on the road to healing and wholeness—to the recovery of human reality as the divine image and of human vocation in a corporate sense as the common stewardship of the earth. This discernment of grace discloses the ways in which political analysis and reorganization serve the divine purposes, however meagerly and reluctantly. And yet the very same discernment in the context of grace discloses that human efforts toward peace, though important and helpful, always fall short of the divine plan and expectation. The maximum human beings can achieve in their temporal work of reconciliation is to develop a society in which the members are relatively free to be vulnerable. That is a lot, but it is much less than the kingdom of God, and it is much more fragile.

Third, reconciliation in international conflict, as in other arenas, is a process, not a goal. The setting of particular goals often is important and necessary, but to define reconciliation as an end-goal, an ideal relegated to a far-off future, makes it something that can be set aside as remote and irrelevant. Reconciliation is a present and a constant activity, something to be worked at in every moment and situation. It is a call to enter a process, to transcend immediate realities of alienation, and to do so in response to the grace of God pressing toward wholeness. It is the work at hand. This work will be a demand of grace so long as sin is present in human experience.

Other Possible Approaches

My decision to focus on the reconciling work of God as the governing concept in this process of thinking about war means that I have not chosen some other approaches that are prominent, and at times dominant, in this kind of discussion.

Renouncing Violence, and “Following Jesus”

Specifically, I have not made renunciation of violence the touchstone for Christian thinking about war. When viewed in the context of the history of gracious renewal, violence is something to be subdued and controlled, not something simply to be renounced. Implicit in what I have said is a decidedly negative attitude toward violence, because it is prime evidence of the disruption of the divine plan; however, one should not therefore abstract it from the total fabric of ruination and resistance with which divine reconciliation must work. The starting point for Christian thinking about war is the work of God in bringing the fallen creation to the realization of wholeness, healing, and development. How to deal with violence falls within the context of that work, but it is not the starting point for faith and action. With regard to nonviolent resistance or direct action, there are times when that commitment is the correct situational expression of Christian vocation, but it is not the definition of Christian response as such.

The decision to renounce violence on principle follows often from the decision to make “following Jesus” the basis for Christian discipleship generally and war-thinking in particular.4 In no way do I dismiss the authority and relevance of the Jesus of the Gospels. Much of what Jesus did and said are timeless directives for the message and activity of the church. Jesus is Lord and Savior. The fundamental theological relevance of Jesus of Nazareth is that he is both climax and essential instrument of the plan of God to redeem and revitalize the fallen creation—that is the christological construal of “following Jesus.” It is not his role as moral teacher or his statements or stance on any g...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: The Problem: How to Think as Christians about War and Peace
• Chapter 2: War and Reconciliation: Logics and Contexts
• Part One: The Theological Context
• Part Two: The Political Context
• Part Three: Peace, Justice, the Church
• Concluding Reflections
• Bibliography