Would you nuke the Russians if God told you?

Peter J Barban

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That is the hypothetical question my mentor asked me back in 1982. Recently, he had led me to Christ at my college and was training me to follow Christ through Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, worship, and obedience.

He was a retired nuclear engineer from the US Navy, approved by Admiral Rickover to be part of the submarine fleet officer core. He had been in the chain of command to "nuke the Ruskies" on his sub. He would have pushed the button if the US ordered him. Obviously, that order never came.

I came from a very different background, I had been an agnostic Catholic (a mix of my mother and father), and conscientious objector regarding the US Draft, and a pacifist since high school. I found his question very disturbing and couldn't answer it at the time. I had to wrestle with this issue for a while before I made my decision.

How about you? Would you nuke whoever your country considers its enemy if God told you?

Likewise, if God ordered you to violate your conscience in some other way, would you?
 

Sketcher

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I rest in the knowledge that God won't do that. What he taught about not murdering people and preserving life and being kind and merciful makes that very clear. You ask about if God ordered me to violate my conscience - God built up my conscience. He's not going to be the one to tear it down.

Now, if God told me to do something equally challenging but morally consistent with his will as revealed in the NT, I would have to ask for wisdom and opportunity and fortitude to carry out his orders. But he will never tell me to nuke a country.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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How about you?

Under the exact right set of circumstances yes. But in general I really hate some of these overly dramatic and artificial Thought Experiment type questions that often look nothing like the real world, this one at least has some basis in history and reality based on Rickover.


In general mass killing is against Christian values, but self defense is not. With some of my experience in the Charismatic movement, I am leery of dubious "messages from God", but I certainly do believe in conscience, and besides withstraining violence that also carries with it the need to protect people in your care and if it means stopping some malevolent power looking to invade or destroy my country then yeah I would do what is necessary relevant to the situation.


For folks who got a problem of that I would bring up Marcionism and other related Gnostic and Manichean heresies which preached that "The God of the Old Testament was a different God than the God of the New Testament" (especially the Gospels). While not preaching that kind of message many Christians act that way theologically speaking.
 
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d taylor

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Pavel Mosko

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No body will have to, God will bring fire (plus other types of destruction's Ezekiel 38:17-23) down from Heaven on the russians and their allies when they try to go against Israel. This is a pre-tribulation event.

Ezekiel 38:1- 23 , 39:1-16

Maybe but you seem pretty confident of that God was prophesying Schofields interpretation of events back in the ancient days of Israel, and there are various reasons why that is dubious, Joel Richardson is probably the best for explaining why that is.


 
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public hermit

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How about you? Would you nuke whoever your country considers its enemy if God told you?

Likewise, if God ordered you to violate your conscience in some other way, would you?


No. I assume, rightly or wrongly, that God would not ask me to destroy (kill) those made in the divine image, especially on as flimsy a justification that they are my country's enemies. And, since I believe God is love, I assume I would be graciously forgiven if, on the outside chance, my decision to disobey on those grounds was in error. I honestly don't think this hypothetical could ever arise; OT passages to the contrary are duly noted.
 
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d taylor

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Maybe but you seem pretty confident of that God was prophesying Schofields interpretation of events back in the ancient days of Israel, and there are various reasons why that is dubious, Joel Richardson is probably the best for explaining why that is.



The part about future prophecy is it really is a wait and see situation. Who was/is correct or partially correct or wrong all together.
 
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aiki

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That is the hypothetical question my mentor asked me back in 1982. Recently, he had led me to Christ at my college and was training me to follow Christ through Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, worship, and obedience.

He was a retired nuclear engineer from the US Navy, approved by Admiral Rickover to be part of the submarine fleet officer core. He had been in the chain of command to "nuke the Ruskies" on his sub. He would have pushed the button if the US ordered him. Obviously, that order never came.

I came from a very different background, I had been an agnostic Catholic (a mix of my mother and father), and conscientious objector regarding the US Draft, and a pacifist since high school. I found his question very disturbing and couldn't answer it at the time. I had to wrestle with this issue for a while before I made my decision.

How about you? Would you nuke whoever your country considers its enemy if God told you?

Likewise, if God ordered you to violate your conscience in some other way, would you?

I know of no reason why God would ever directly and explicitly command anyone to nuke anyone else. Doing such a thing goes against everything I know of God and His will revealed to me in His word, the Bible. One might make some argument, I suppose, for nuking a military target that is aggressively seeking one's destruction, but a Hiroshima-style nuclear action against a civilian target has no justification whatever within a Judeo-Christian worldview.

The human conscience can be dulled and warped and so it is not the best basis upon which to make moral choices. Instead, I look to God's word for my morality and values, patterning these things upon what God has laid out in His word, conforming my conscience to His will and way.
 
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Aussie Pete

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That is the hypothetical question my mentor asked me back in 1982. Recently, he had led me to Christ at my college and was training me to follow Christ through Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, worship, and obedience.

He was a retired nuclear engineer from the US Navy, approved by Admiral Rickover to be part of the submarine fleet officer core. He had been in the chain of command to "nuke the Ruskies" on his sub. He would have pushed the button if the US ordered him. Obviously, that order never came.

I came from a very different background, I had been an agnostic Catholic (a mix of my mother and father), and conscientious objector regarding the US Draft, and a pacifist since high school. I found his question very disturbing and couldn't answer it at the time. I had to wrestle with this issue for a while before I made my decision.

How about you? Would you nuke whoever your country considers its enemy if God told you?

Likewise, if God ordered you to violate your conscience in some other way, would you?
Crazy question. The short answer is yes. We are not God. Christians have a conscience that is sensitive to right and wrong according to God's ways. Logic and reason may argue against God but disobedience is sin. God knows what is best.

I cannot begin to imagine that God would actually command that. But I think that Mary said it best when the wedding ran out of wine. Speaking to the servants, she said, "Whatever He (Jesus) says, do it." It should be the ruling principle of every Christian life.
 
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