War and Peace

I've said similar things and have Blogged similar things. There actually is an Armenian holiday that is worth noting.


The Battle of Vartanantz represents the conviction of the Armenian nation as it stood up for its faith in Christianity when it was challenged by the Persian Empire. Before the Battle, the Persian King Yezdegerd II decreed a threat “that no man should dare call himself a Christian on pain of judgment, by the sword, fire and the scaffold.” The great Armenian military leader Vartan Mamigonian, along with the Armenian nation, replied, “Neither angels nor men nor the sword nor fire would ever turn the Armenian people away from Christianity.”

On the eve of the Battle, the army took Communion, and on May 26, 451 AD on the plains of Avarayr, Vartan Mamigonian led 66,000 Armenian soldiers against a 200,000-strong Persian army. The Battle lasted one day, Vartan was killed and the Armenians lost. They, however, under Vahan Mamigonian’s leadership, did not give up, but stood firm and persevered. Thirty-three years after the Battle, and through the Treaty of Nvarsag, the Armenian nation secured its freedom –free to be Christians and practice their Christian faith, and free to preserve their Armenian identity and live in their homeland.

History remembers individuals who resolve to stand firm on their principles and persevere in their beliefs. Moses was such a man. The Bible says, “by faith Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter … (and) not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered” (Hebrews 11:24, 27). He saw his people liberated from slavery and preserve their Jewish identity.
The Battle of Vartanantz was and is the defining event in our history that gave to us a spirit of perseverance, resolve and sacrifice, which has lasted until today. It’s up to us to remember –to relive and re-experience the perseverance, resolve and sacrifice of our ancestors, and to honor and preserve their enduring spirit.

The Spirit of Vartanantz

-Rev. Dr. Avedis Boynerian

Just marking my place; it's early Sunday morning here and I have services to go take, but I'll be back to contribute later.

I do not think of war as evil. You could say it is like money. Money is not evil but the love of money is.

War should not be used as an occasion for the flesh, nor as an excuse to sin.

As Christians we are actually at war, and Paul makes this clear.

2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
2Co 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
2Co 10:6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

We need to keep in mind that we are not building a kingdom of this world for the kingdom of God is not of such.

Christian pacifism should not lead to surrender and all too often it does because we are afraid to resist unto death. This is the cause of many departing from the faith.

There comes a time when it is better to obey God than man. Should my government make it law that I should not believe in and obey God and Christ I simply must disobey my government.

We are on the brink of this in the western world.

And we also in the Coptic Orthodox Church do not forget the likes of military saints such as St. Philopateer Mercurius, called in Arabic Abu Seifein, 'Possessor of the Two Swords', in reference to the legend that in battle he was given a second sword by the archangel Michael. Here he is in an icon from his church in Old Cairo killing Julian the Apostate:



And with him we could mention many others like Emir Tadros (St. Theodore El Shatby; called "Emir", the equivalent of prince and/or commander, because he was of royal background on his mother's side and his father reached a high position in the Roman army, which he likewise eventually joined), the Theban Legion, of course St. George, St. Mina, and so on.

Of course pacifism can be very noble and a good example when it is willingly chosen, as in the case of the martyrdom of St. Moses the Strong and his brother monks at the hands of the Berbers when they came to pillage his monastery. He could have fought back and probably his brothers would have joined him, but he instead willingly embraced martyrdom. But that does not make the military saints or even the other examples we can find of Christians taking up arms wrong. Like I refuse to condemn the Armenians for fighting for their right to exist on the land that has been theirs since time immemorial against the wretched Turks in Artsakh or anywhere else for that matter (they also have the right to continue to exist in the various places that the genocides drove them to). Same too the Syriacs of various confessions, though in some cases the politics of the surrounding situation are enough to make not support them. Like to me there's a massive difference from where I'm sitting between the Syriacs in the militias in Iraq and Syria like the Dwekh Nawsha (which exists to protect the Christians of the Nineveh Plains in Iraq against the attempted genocide of the maniacs in Daesh and similar terrorist groups) or the Sutoro (same thing, but in Syria) and the various gangs/militias that went around fighting with each other during the Lebanese Civil War (including massacring entire families of their political opponents). I guess this is where 'Just War' theory would come in if I believed in such things, but I don't (at least not in the sense of some codified checklist or whatever which can pronounce any given conflict as 'just', as though military conflicts even should be emptied of their ambiguities).

Choose peace whenever possible, but when it's not possible, be wise in determining to what extent you must go to protect your family and community. And may we all be protected through the intercessions of St. George, St. Victor, Emir Tadros, all the military saints.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

...We as Christians are to submit to overmining authorities and that God has placed the sword in their hand for a reason, as a means of preserving justice and punishing wrong doers. ...

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I think it is good not to kill anyone. But, the submitting, what does it really mean, after all, Paul was in prison, because he didn’t obey, Jesus was killed, because he didn’t obey?

I would imagine that it's enough to say we are not to be violent political revolutionaries, in distinction to the political and military messiah the Jews were waiting for (and still are), or certain popular depictions of Christ and early Christianity by the know-nothings of popular culture in our time like Reza Aslan and the like. That's not our model -- Christ is, and Christ took the form of a servant.

Paidiske said:

As to the rest, I do not accept the idea of "just war." We cannot commit mass killing and atrocity and call it just. The ends never justify the means.

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1. Are you then a pacifist?
2. What do you make of the centrality of wars in the Old Testament?

It occurred to me over the last day or so that to really do this justice I ought to produce a systematic, well-thought-through essay covering all the points raised and a bunch more. However, since I don't have time or energy for that, this is a bit more like thought-confetti, but hopefully as we explore it together some useful dialogue may be had.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

If warfare is forbidden, period, then I wonder how it is as Christians we reconcile ourselves to the Christian past. When I consider a war like the Reconquista, am I to consider it a bad thing that Spain is Christian today? Am I to consider it a bad thing that the Roman Byzantines fought the Turks constantly and prevented them from entering Europe for hundreds of years? That they kept Islam from entering it even longer? Am I to think it a bad thing that there was crusade to take control of Muslim Egypt and then go further to liberate Jerusalem?

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Why do we need to be reconciled to the Christian past? Many Christians have done things which are bad and wrong. I don't feel any need to pretend otherwise. Warfare in the name of Christ is just about the most profound blasphemy I can imagine.

For me this question of "Is war bad?" can't be judged on its results, as if "our" side prevailing in a struggle is automatically good. We have to look at what happens in war. Not only the deaths and injuries and horrors visited upon the people, but - if we take the Reconquista as an example - we need also to look at the expulsion of the Jews by the conquering Christians, their mistreatment of the vanquished, forced conversions, seizures of property, etc.

And we have to be honest and say, this is not how Christ would have us treat our neighbour. This denial of the basic humanity and dignity of another person created in the image of God; it is not good, not even provisionally good or the lesser of two evils, it is an evil chosen and willingly perpetrated in a quest for power and domination; the absolute opposite of the way Christ showed us on the cross.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

This is not to ignore atrocity or unnecessary evil committed in warfare. You can point out all of the faults of the Crusaders or the Reconquista. Those immediate actions were not justified and they required repentance (such as a whole sale massacre or rape). Yet what I fail to see is how the projects of Christian monarchs during those times were a fundamentally bad thing. Especially in laying down foundations which could be built upon for establishing Christendom as it later stood.

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Because the projects of Christian monarchs here being talked about were fundamentally about imposing their will on the lives of others. (One could argue that that is the pattern of monarchy generally, but let's try not to go down that rabbit hole for now). For a monarch to decide to transgress the boundaries of their territory, with the aim of imposing their rule on the subjects of another territory, forcibly and by brutalising the people of the other land (and sacrificing their own subjects in the process) is nothing but a naked power grab. That they were Christian, and some of the people to whom they did this were not, provides no justification for that power grab! (And I note that Christian monarchs were plenty happy to squabble amongst themselves, too, with not even that flimsy excuse).

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Unless we want to separate ourselves completely from that heritage we need to find a way to accept the past and incorporate it into our view of how God expects us to do.

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I'm not seeing the necessity of integrating warfare into part of my sense of Christian identity and mission. Separation from a heritage of brutality and oppression seems just fine. I can admire the courage and persistence of a St. Joan of Arc while still thinking God didn't actually take sides in the Hundred Years' War (except perhaps the side of those whose lives were needlessly sacrificed for the ambition of kings).

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

I do not believe that the Church has been fundamentally misguided by it allying itself with secular powers who used warfare as a means. If it has, the Church has ceased to exist as an entity since the third century. Mormons and other restorationist sects make this appeal constantly and to our modern liberal sensibilities it appears a strong reason for why Christendom cannot be trusted.

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The Church has certainly been compromised by allying itself with secular powers in various ways. I wouldn't say it has ceased to exist, but it has certainly gotten itself mixed up in things that it shouldn't. (And lest anyone think I am levelling that criticism at other denominations but not my own, the Established Church of England has plenty to answer for in that regard, and the way it functioned in England's projects of colonisation and empire-building).

Christendom can't be trusted, to the extent that Christendom is a project of empire. Because empire is always, to some degree, opposed to or subversive of the reign of God.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

We could even use the Armenians of today as another example. What would you have had them do when Azerbaijan made moves to take Nagorno-Karabakh? Should they have surrendered the territory without a fight? Should they perhaps surrender even more of their small country if Turkey or Azerbaijan demands it in the future? Is there a circumstance where it is ever permissible for them to fight back?

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While I am not an expert on this particular conflict, my answer would be that Christians should not be willing to take a single life to stake a claim to a particular piece of land. We are aliens and exiles on this earth (1 Peter 2:11), and should be prepared to live as such.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

We can only really treat warfare as something done by states rather than by individuals.

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I am not sure about that. Yes, warfare is the action of a state; but individuals choose to participate in that, or not. For example, I would never be willing to serve in the armed forces.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

But once we are an integral part of a state, does that mean that such a state has to have no military?

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Realistically, few of us are going to live in such a state (although to my surprise, Google just taught me that there are in fact 36 such states. Most of them are small and my guess is that they rely on the military power of their neighbours). But we can try to participate in the politics of our state in ways which don't see the military misused.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

We as Christians are to submit to overmining authorities and that God has placed the sword in their hand for a reason, as a means of preserving justice and punishing wrong doers.

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I don't think that instruction extends to warfare.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

especially when we consider that there will always be an aggressor. Peace can be had so long as the aggressor is satisfied and should we appease the aggressor in order to maintain peace? WW2 might ring a few bells here.

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Perhaps. A good argument can be made that WW2 happened because of the incredibly unjust settlement at the end of WW1. Violence and oppression beget violence and oppression... perhaps we should not be surprised.

zippy2006 said:

1. Are you then a pacifist?
2. What do you make of the centrality of wars in the Old Testament?

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Yes, I think it's clear by now that I'm a pacifist.

I think that, at best, God allowed and worked through the wars in the Old Testament to bring about what God intended. I do not believe that God ever considered them good.

It strikes me - as a comment on the thread more generally - that so much of this ends up being tied up in our theology of power. If the seeking of power and control over others - of which warfare is the most extreme and brutal example - is always a misuse of power, then warfare can never be anything other than a denial of the way God calls us to live. (I reflected on this a bit more here, and although that doesn't discuss warfare as such, it explains my thinking on this at more length).

Paidiske said:

Warfare in the name of Christ is just about the most profound blasphemy I can imagine.

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Armenia won the legal right to practice Christianity within the Persian empire (as it was at the time) via the Battle of Avarayr in 451 AD (a battle which they lost, but it brought the Persians to the table sometime later to issue some concessions to keep the Armenians from fighting them again).

Was that wrong somehow? And if so, how?

For me this question of "Is war bad?" can't be judged on its results, as if "our" side prevailing in a struggle is automatically good. We have to look at what happens in war. Not only the deaths and injuries and horrors visited upon the people, but - if we take the Reconquista as an example - we need also to look at the expulsion of the Jews by the conquering Christians, their mistreatment of the vanquished, forced conversions, seizures of property, etc.

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Christians and Jews were both expelled first from the Iberian Peninsula during the days of Islamic rule in Spain in the 12th century, long before any Reconquista. The Jews were massacred in Islamic Granada in 1066. The picture of an idyllic Islamic Spain of coexistence and peace that was somehow shattered by the Reconquista is at best very one-dimensional. At worst, it's the same self-hatred and garbage we've heard for decades upon decades, and is used to excuse or draw focus away from or minimize atrocities committed by non-Christians so long as there are 'Christian atrocities' to point to instead. It's very disappointing, and furthermore intellectually lazy to the point of being irresponsible.

Please see academic resources like Sarah Stroumsa "Between Acculturation and Conversion: The Case of the Banu Hasday" in Mediterranea 1 (2006, Cordoba University Press, p. 9-36), for some updates to the pseudo-traditional rosy picture of Islamic Spain.

And we have to be honest and say, this is not how Christ would have us treat our neighbour. This denial of the basic humanity and dignity of another person created in the image of God; it is not good, not even provisionally good or the lesser of two evils, it is an evil chosen and willingly perpetrated in a quest for power and domination; the absolute opposite of the way Christ showed us on the cross.

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Was Christ set against Himself when He chased the money-changers out of the temple and flipped over their tables?

Christendom can't be trusted, to the extent that Christendom is a project of empire.

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Alright, cool...so when it's not a 'project of empire', then there's no fault in it, right? Because it was never a project of empire in the case of the Coptic, Syriac, Indian, and Armenian churches (the 'Armenian Empire', as the historical Kingdom of Armenia is sometimes called, reached its greatest extent under Tigranes the Great in 69 BC; after that it was fought over between the Romans and the Parthians, the Byzantines and the Sassanids, etc., and hence became a vassal of whoever happened to be ruling it, and wasn't really independent again until the end of the Soviet era, when it couldn't be called an empire in any sense).

Because empire is always, to some degree, opposed to or subversive of the reign of God.

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Soooo, you're not too big on the monarchy of the Father, I take it?

While I am not an expert on this particular conflict, my answer would be that Christians should not be willing to take a single life to stake a claim to a particular piece of land. We are aliens and exiles on this earth (1 Peter 2:11), and should be prepared to live as such.

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They're already living as exiles in Artsakh to begin with, cut off from their brothers in Armenia proper since the world has decided that their bit of their homeland belongs to Azerbaijan! So what then? You still haven't answered Ignatius' question with your very general statement.

And that's the problem with this pacifistic stance in the real world, in general: it's all fine and well to have high-minded, pacifistic principles (I'd like to think I do, though I am not a pacifist myself), but if they're not workable in the real world in which we actually live, then they're not a very good way to organize a society. Broadcast to the world that you won't fight back no matter what and you'll just attract a bunch of scumbags who see you as an easy mark. That's why I used the example of St. Moses in my post: by the story of his life before his conversion, it is more than clear that he could have fought back, yet he made the deliberate decision not to and willingly embraced martyrdom at the hands of his attackers. That's different than sacrificing your entire group or nation, however. Even the Coptic people -- who I think we can all agree have basically eaten a dog-squat sandwich for most of the past 2,000 years as far as their relationship to government is concerned -- are not as pacifistic in their history as it might seem by looking at their example today. Yes, we have the 21 Neo-Martyrs of Libya (and may their intercessions be heard and accepted before the throne of God), and the glorious martyrs of the bus attacks, and the attacks on El Botroseya and Tanta, and the 2011 New Years attack (etc., etc.!), but we also have all of the military saints I mentioned before, and the additional examples of non-saints but still fighters against oppression like the Bashmurians of the 8th and 9th century, who fought against the Umayyads and the Abbasids in the Nile Delta for about a hundred years, because they were unwilling to accept the double blow of oppressive taxation and worsening treatment by the Arab governors of the region. (It should be noted that some Muslims also joined these revolts in protest against the high rate of taxation more generally, so while it was definitely a 'Coptic phenomenon' in the sense of being spurred by Coptic anger and led and mostly participated in by Coptic people, it was significantly less sectarian than the tax structure of the new Muslim government itself was, which of course charged Christians even more for the right to live in their own dang country as Christians.)

Coptic history is decidedly negative about them (not because they lost so much as because they had to defy both patriarch and sultan in the process of waging their revolts; the Wikipedia article on the revolts gives a considerable number of Coptic references to this effect), but the individual Copts I have known (basically all of them that know about them) are less so, generally saying something like "If only our fathers had held on for longer..." (i.e., not converted en masse to Islam). I find nothing wrong in that wish, personally. I don't want to live under the thumb of a bunch of savages either.

dzheremi said:

Was that wrong somehow? And if so, how?

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If my answer to this wasn't clear from my previous post, I'm not sure me saying the same things again is going to make it any clearer.

dzheremi said:

Christians and Jews were both expelled first from the Iberian Peninsula during the days of Islamic rule in Spain in the 12th century, long before any Reconquista.

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We don't accept "But they did it first!" as an excuse for misbehaviour from kindergarten children; are we now supposed to accept it from supposedly mature Christian adults?

dzheremi said:

Was Christ set against Himself when He chased the money-changers out of the temple and flipped over their tables?

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I do hope you're not actually suggesting that is somehow comparable to mass killing, maiming, rape, destruction of property, etc. in war.

dzheremi said:

Alright, cool...so when it's not a 'project of empire', then there's no fault in it, right?

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That does not follow from me pointing out that the ideology of empire is inherently suspect.

dzheremi said:

Soooo, you're not too big on the monarchy of the Father, I take it?

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I've yet to see any Christian theocracy which lived up to Christian ideals.

dzheremi said:

And that's the problem with this pacifistic stance in the real world, in general: it's all fine and well to have high-minded, pacifistic principles (I'd like to think I do, though I am not a pacifist myself), but if they're not workable in the real world in which we actually live, then they're not a very good way to organize a society.

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I could, as a counter-example, point to the effective use of non-violent resistance, which - for example - won India its independence. I am not necessarily arguing that one should never stand up for oneself or one's community or what one believes in; I am arguing that doing so by means of warfare goes beyond how God calls Christians to live and witness to Christ.

dzheremi said:

I don't want to live under the thumb of a bunch of savages either.

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This is ironic, given that this discussion originated in a thread where many were arguing for the subjugation of women to men, and the idea that war was a justifiable evil arose as part of the discussion as to whether anyone's lives should be treated as expendable.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Whether or not a war is good depends on both the methods used during the course of a conflict and the outcome. Using the Reconquista as our same example, does the expulsion of the Jews mean the whole enterprise was flawed or that only an aspect of it was flawed? What is the alternative path of history? No Reconquista, which means an Islamic Spain, an Islamic Spain which if it ever unified would have posed a direct threat to France and the rest of Christian Europe.

One can feel bad for the Jews, but can we let that one factor alone be the deciding factor in declaring the entire idea flawed or deeply immoral? I’m not inclined to think so, since I regard a Christian Spain better than an Islamic Spain. If you’re inclined to believe Islamic Al-Andulus was a better country I would recommend the book: “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.”

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No no no. We cannot justify war because the "good guys" won, and we like the outcome.

To kill, maim, and destroy en masse is inherently bad. Imagining an alternative outcome which we like less doesn't justify it.

I am not making any claims about the goodness or otherwise of Islamic Al-Andalus; I am simply saying that war is wrong. Including war against Muslims or any other group who are "them" and not "us."

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

I object to this characterization that war is just evil chosen for power and domination. As if on the abstract that power is necessarily a bad thing. Paul and Jesus both accepted the power of the Roman government. They both accepted the state as it existed and worked within that system to subvert it from within.

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Did you read the link I provided? That covers the question of power in more depth. I am not saying that power is inherently bad; I am saying that seeking power over others (especially through violent means such as warfare) is inherently wrong. A Christian is not to seek to impose his or her will on others. (It's interesting to note that Paul and Jesus both accepted the power of the Roman government; and that was power which neither of them wielded. Neither of them suggested that seizing such power and wielding it in the name of the Kingdom would be a good or proper thing).

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

If we continue using the example of Spain, was it wrong for the Monarchs of Spain to expand their realms into Islamic controlled realms?

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At the cost of how many lives? Google suggests 10,000,000 people died in the fighting. Ten million people obliterated, their lives and potential ended, their families shattered, their communities traumatised! For what? A line on a map and a claim to "Christian" control?

Yes. I'll put my hand up and say that was wrong.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

It’s only when that power is misused that we are held to account and every can recognize the faults of many states as Christians.

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Right, but somehow we want to claim that war is not a misuse of power? I cannot accept that argument.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

All governments and regimes impose their will on the people. Monarchies are no different than modern governments in this respect and I would argue allowed for greater autonomy than our modern nation states do, the only difference being the decentralized nature of the imposition on people in western democratic countries today.

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That's kind of off topic too (and I thought it might be better to avoid debating the ethics of monarchy generally). That said, as a citizen of a secular democracy, in which I have a right to participate, and from which I have a right to remove myself if I so choose, I do not feel that our current system of government is so draconian. At least the nation state in which I live claims no right to end my life.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

It also doesn’t resolve the problem of how Christianity has benefitted from warfare or Christian states supporting them.

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How is that a problem? Sure, institutional Christianity has benefitted enormously from warfare, imperialism, colonialism, and so on. Doesn't make any of those things right.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Why has God allowed the Church to benefit from the Roman Empire? From the Christian Kingdoms of the past? From colonialism? All these various nations and institutions that we are taught to despise, yet through them God has accomplished more than any liberal Christian ever has. If not for those things, Christians would be like the Jews. Small, maybe very influential, but the average person would not have been exposed to the Gospel and Christ’s name would not be glorified everywhere.

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Well, we can't really ever know what might have been. Why has God allowed all this? Might as well ask why God allows us free will at all. I'm grateful that God is at work for good in all circumstances, even when we mess up, but that doesn't mean I'm going to claim that we haven't messed up just because God used it for good.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Joan of Arc is an interesting example you bring up. I think she was used by God to get the English out of France. Why shouldn’t God concern himself with the nations and where they are going? We aren’t deists and certainly Christians of the past has believed their nations and peoples were rewarded and punished by God accordingly? The first refrain of clergy in lands occupied by a foreign power was to acknowledge their sins. If only we could all learn from that humility today.

But why admire Joan of Arc? She was a just a bit of a warmonger and had an intense dislike of the English. Her monarchism makes even myself blush.

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I honestly do not, for one second, believe that God cares about the lines we draw on maps about who rules which bit of land. Especially between two so-called Christian nations.

As for Joan of Arc, she's a very interesting character. Someone who had enormous courage and tenacity, even when - in her own words - she'd have rather been sitting and spinning with her mother. I can admire her willingness to throw her all into what she believed she ought to do, and deplore the way she died, without agreeing with her political worldview.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

While you can criticize England for a lot of things (and believe me I acknowledge the faults of Great Britain), can you criticize her supporting Missionaries in her colonial territories, in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and wherever else? For supporting the Church financially and desiring the salvation of her subjects?

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No, but I can critique the way that was engaged in. For example, you can read in Australian history of Samuel Marsden, the "flogging parson," who combined being chaplain to the colony with being its magistrate, in a way which was considered a questionable witness to the gospel even in his own time. That's not something I'd hold up as a model of ministry to which we ought to aspire!

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

I suppose that’s easy for someone like us to say, living in Australia and New Zealand respectfully. Relatively new nations, not particularly Christian and not particularly significant historically.

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Perhaps, although I have not always lived here, and being caught up in riots, regime change, conscripted military service and revolutions is within the living memory of my family. I have had reason to ask myself whether - for example - I could have shot the man who was about to kill my father, as my grandmother did at 16. I am not sure I could.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

I commend you for committing to your position and not mincing words, but how far are you willing to go? If you could have saved a hundred Armenians during WW1 by killing their Turkish escorts as they marched them into the desert to die, would you? Or would you maintain your beliefs in the face of that?

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I do not know. I would like to think that, put to the test, I would maintain my belief that every single human being is sacred, and that their life is not mine to take. But I can see the force of utilitarian ethics here, and that feeling I had no other options I might allow myself to be reduced to a numbers game.

Part of the problem here seems to be that violence and warfare is assumed to be the only alternative to passivity and subjugation. I do not believe that dichotomy holds. Not engaging in war does not mean "doing nothing."

Paidiske said:

If my answer to this wasn't clear from my previous post, I'm not sure me saying the same things again is going to make it any clearer.

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So Armenians should have to be wiped off the map for your principles?

Who are you in the Armenian Church, again?

We don't accept "But they did it first!" as an excuse for misbehaviour from kindergarten children; are we now supposed to accept it from supposedly mature Christian adults?

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My point was that acting like Christians must forever grovel before the world for having the temerity to kick out a bunch of invading savages who came there by conquest and violence (you know, the things you hate so much) in the first place is ludicrous. If you can't or don't want to separate the very conditions that led to the reconquista being launched (the violent conquest and destruction of Christian Spain by the Muslim invading forces) from the fact that the Spanish crown went way too far in the inquisitions then fine, but I don't see why anyone else should therefore have to treat the rest of the world with kid gloves because oh my stars, how could Christians be engaged in violence or whatever. If the reconquista's excesses are so bad (and I agree that they are), then when will the Turks for example ever have their historical reckoning for their centuries of slaughter and forced conversion to their religion? Never, apparently, because the world doesn't care about the Armenians (ever...it's not like the current fighting doesn't have its incredibly long historical antecedents; look up the historical conditions surrounding the founding of New Julfa, Iran), or the Syriacs, or the Pontic Greeks. But some Jews and Muslims got killed 500+ years ago in Spain, so Christianity has to always eat it forever. This doesn't really make a lot of sense, and seems set up to systematically exclude Christianity in particular from having a place in public life while practically inviting in things that are much, much worse on the issue of historical and even current violence because, hey, they're not Christian, so they don't have Jesus' prohibitions to think of before they act!

What great societies that is bound to form. I can't wait until everywhere's like beautiful downtown Peshawar, bombings and all.

I do hope you're not actually suggesting that is somehow comparable to mass killing, maiming, rape, destruction of property, etc. in war.

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I'm asking you a question in response to what you had typed.

That does not follow from me pointing out that the ideology of empire is inherently suspect.

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I never said it did, but it does invite that question. Christianity with empire is bad, right? So Christianity absent empire is....?????

I've yet to see any Christian theocracy which lived up to Christian ideals.

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That was a little theology joke, but okay.

I could, as a counter-example, point to the effective use of non-violent resistance, which - for example - won India its independence. I am not necessarily arguing that one should never stand up for oneself or one's community or what one believes in; I am arguing that doing so by means of warfare goes beyond how God calls Christians to live and witness to Christ.

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The Middle East, North Africa, etc. (all the trouble spots where Christians are killed for being Christian) are not 1940s India, Gandhi was not a Christian, and we're not facing a decaying, bloated British administration that just doesn't want to give up its colonies. Come on.

This is ironic, given that this discussion originated in a thread where many were arguing for the subjugation of women to men, and the idea that war was a justifiable evil arose as part of the discussion as to whether anyone's lives should be treated as expendable.

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What's ironic to me is condemning entire groups of your supposed coreligionists to die without so much as a peep in protest because if they were to defend themselves they might go beyond what someone in a first world country that faces none of their pressures thinks is appropriate.

I would offer instead a reiteration of the point I was making in my first post in this thread by bringing up St. Moses the Ethiopian and others from my own Church: it's one thing if the people are exhorted to willingly embrace martyrdom by the examples of their own saints (as we are, quite consistently), but to pretend that this is the only legitimate option for the Christian when we have plenty of other examples in the military saints and others is at best not telling the whole story. On the whole we definitely emphasize one over the other (the Bashmurian revolts were the last of the major revolts against Islamic rule in Egypt, and they ended over a millennia ago), but both are still there.

dzheremi said:

So Armenians should have to be wiped off the map for your principles?

Who are you in the Armenian Church, again?

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Hey, I'm nobody in the Armenian Church, and this discussion isn't going to force anyone to live as I suggest.

But you asked was the battle wrong, and I'm saying, such a battle is never right.

dzheremi said:

If the reconquista's excesses are so bad (and I agree that they are), then when will the Turks for example ever have their historical reckoning for their centuries of slaughter and forced conversion to their religion?

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That's God's prerogative, not ours.

dzheremi said:

I'm asking you a question in response to what you had typed.

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And I'm saying Christ's action in that situation is in no way even vaguely comparable to warfare. Y'know, somebody probably had to tidy up afterwards, but nobody died.

dzheremi said:

I never said it did, but it does invite that question. Christianity with empire is bad, right? So Christianity absent empire is....?????

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Faced with a different set of temptations. For example, the members of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany give us much to ponder. For example, Bonhoeffer wrote: "The blood of martyrs might once again be demanded, but this blood, if we really have the courage and loyalty to shed it, will not be innocent, shining like that of the first witnesses for the faith. On our blood lies heavy guilt, the guilt of the unprofitable servant who is cast into outer darkness."

He might have been persuaded by utilitarian ethics, but he recognised that he could not call such an action good or right.

dzheremi said:

The Middle East, North Africa, etc. (all the trouble spots where Christians are killed for being Christian) are not 1940s India, Gandhi was not a Christian, and we're not facing a decaying, bloated British administration that just doesn't want to give up its colonies. Come on.

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I am in earnest. Non-violent resistance has been shown to be more effective in creating social change, than violent conflict. Why nonviolent resistance beats violent force in effecting social, political change

dzheremi said:

What's ironic to me is condemning entire groups of your supposed coreligionists to die without so much as a peep in protest because if they were to defend themselves they might go beyond what someone in a first world country that faces none of their pressures thinks is appropriate.

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Our only options are not kill or be killed. We can work for a better, more just, more open society without killing. I am arguing against the narrative that "war is the only answer," not arguing that we should therefore not seek change.

Paidiske said:

It occurred to me over the last day or so that to really do this justice I ought to produce a systematic, well-thought-through essay covering all the points raised and a bunch more. However, since I don't have time or energy for that, this is a bit more like thought-confetti, but hopefully as we explore it together some useful dialogue may be had.

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Sounds good. I won't be engaging as thoroughly as the others, but here are a few thoughts.

This denial of the basic humanity and dignity of another person created in the image of God; it is not good, not even provisionally good or the lesser of two evils, it is an evil chosen and willingly perpetrated in a quest for power and domination; the absolute opposite of the way Christ showed us on the cross.

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You've basically just given the definition of an unjust war. It's really no way to oppose just war theory:

For a monarch to decide to transgress the boundaries of their territory, with the aim of imposing their rule on the subjects of another territory, forcibly and by brutalising the people of the other land (and sacrificing their own subjects in the process) is nothing but a naked power grab.

Separation from a heritage of brutality and oppression seems just fine.

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These too are objections to unjust war.

While I am not an expert on this particular conflict, my answer would be that Christians should not be willing to take a single life to stake a claim to a particular piece of land. We are aliens and exiles on this earth (1 Peter 2:11), and should be prepared to live as such.

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As moderns we tend to think of land as dispensable, but that's a rather strange position. If a large family owns a farm and an armed group comes in to steal it from them the family can either defend itself and the land or concede, leave, and have no way to provide for their basic needs. Or, if someone breaks the locks on your house when you are away, moves in, and changes the locks, I highly doubt that you would "be prepared to live as an exile." You would have recourse to the power of the State and would be content to have the State inflict violence on the perpetrators if they do not cooperate. If the criminals cannot be convinced or coerced to leave without physical violence then violence will be necessary. We are physical beings, after all. And if they have guns, then the violence will escalate. No one is just going to leave the criminals to themselves because they have guns, nor should they.

Yes, I think it's clear by now that I'm a pacifist.

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Okay.

I think that, at best, God allowed and worked through the wars in the Old Testament to bring about what God intended. I do not believe that God ever considered them good.

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..but that God did not intend them in any way, because God too cannot use evil as a means?

It strikes me - as a comment on the thread more generally - that so much of this ends up being tied up in our theology of power. If the seeking of power and control over others - of which warfare is the most extreme and brutal example - is always a misuse of power, then warfare can never be anything other than a denial of the way God calls us to live. (I reflected on this a bit more here, and although that doesn't discuss warfare as such, it explains my thinking on this at more length).

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Your objections to unjust wars above are responses to particular wars brought up by the OP, but here you give a more general syllogism: Seeking power and control over others is always an impermissible misuse of power; war is an (extreme) case of such seeking; therefore war is never permissible. Yet this syllogism is also unsound. War is not always a case of seeking power and control, or "domination." For example, self-defense has always been a part of the just cause of the jus ad bellum, as even affirmed by the United Nations.

Surveying the question of just war with the notion that all wars are unjust and all aggressors malicious is like surveying the question of female-initiated domestic abuse with the notion that all domestic violence is unjust and any woman who, say, kills or injures her husband to escape abuse is malicious. It is not a convincing approach.

Paidiske said:

(I reflected on this a bit more here, and although that doesn't discuss warfare as such, it explains my thinking on this at more length).

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A basic difficulty of this sermon is that power can and has been wielded for good. There are wars that have come about precisely because people in power did not want to turn a blind eye to "those who don't have the resources to look after themselves." This is one way that God wielded his power in the OT, and one of the basic rationales for just war theory. For example, one of the reasons a nation can forfeit its international sovereignty is by violating the UN's Genocide Convention. If a modern-day Hitler popped up our treaties would require us to be prepared to go to war as a matter of duty and promise. Such would be a just war, and it would be waged for the exact reason you believe power exists in the first place.

The notion that we should never exercise power in violation of another person's will is neither Christian, traditional, nor rational. There are people who do very evil things, and at times their will can and should be violated.

Paidiske said:

I could, as a counter-example, point to the effective use of non-violent resistance, which - for example - won India its independence. I am not necessarily arguing that one should never stand up for oneself or one's community or what one believes in; I am arguing that doing so by means of warfare goes beyond how God calls Christians to live and witness to Christ.

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Where in the Bible do you believe warfare is condemned?

Paidiske said:

Did you read the link I provided? That covers the question of power in more depth. I am not saying that power is inherently bad; I am saying that seeking power over others (especially through violent means such as warfare) is inherently wrong. A Christian is not to seek to impose his or her will on others. (It's interesting to note that Paul and Jesus both accepted the power of the Roman government; and that was power which neither of them wielded. Neither of them suggested that seizing such power and wielding it in the name of the Kingdom would be a good or proper thing).

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This is an argument from silence, and it is very weak. Neither did Jesus or Paul give any indication that exercise of such power was a bad or improper thing. In fact Paul seems to affirm the State's power of "wielding the sword."

At the cost of how many lives? Google suggests 10,000,000 people died in the fighting. Ten million people obliterated, their lives and potential ended, their families shattered, their communities traumatised! For what? A line on a map and a claim to "Christian" control?

Yes. I'll put my hand up and say that was wrong.

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As far as I can see you're not engaging the issue. You're just leaning on caricatures and strawmen.

What about Nazi Germany? What about the genocidal civil war in Rwanda, with half a million women raped and murdered? What about the weaknesses of pacifism when applied to private citizens, such as self-defense from things like domestic abuse, rape, and murder?

Paidiske said:

Hey, I'm nobody in the Armenian Church, and this discussion isn't going to force anyone to live as I suggest.

But you asked was the battle wrong, and I'm saying, such a battle is never right.

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I'm glad you don't live in Artsakh, then. You'd have it even more completely crushed by the Azeris and their international Islamist cadres than it already has been.

That's God's prerogative, not ours.

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And you'd have that same answer for everything, then? No Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46? No Hiroshima Peace Museum? No Khmer Rouge Tribunal? No trial for the likes of Mengistu Haile Mariam, or Martyrs Museum in Addis Ababa?

Because, again, if "that's God's prerogative" when it comes to getting justice for the exile, rape, and murder of Armenians, Syriacs, and Greeks, why do we constantly have to hear from social justice types how supposedly uniquely terrible Christian atrocities of the past are? It seems more than a little anti-Christian, which is odd coming from a Christian clergyperson.

And I'm saying Christ's action in that situation is in no way even vaguely comparable to warfare. Y'know, somebody probably had to tidy up afterwards, but nobody died.

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Ah, but the point is not to equate the two, but that to paint Christ as an entirely pacifistic character who would never raise a hand in anger is wrong. So saying things like "That's not following the example that Christ gave us" really depends on exactly what we're talking about. I think a righteous anger and a prerogative to protect the dispossessed and brutalized from further harm isn't out of the question. He didn't lead an army as the Jews of His day were looking for their messiah to do, but neither has Christianity historically barred military service, the military saints again bearing witness.

Faced with a different set of temptations. For example, the members of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany give us much to ponder.

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I'm sorry, but wasn't Nazi Germany at least intending to be an empire, what with the invasions of Poland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.? This isn't really comparable to how the Armenians basically stopped having an empire three centuries before becoming Christian, the Assyrians didn't even have anything they could call an empire since 609 BC, and Egypt's influence as a Christian power extended only so far as they were looked to by other independent Christian powers in Africa (in Ethiopia and Sudan), and was never a matter of military conquest of those places.

I don't think is a very good answer to my question, unless there's something I'm not understanding about Nazi Germany.

I am in earnest. Non-violent resistance has been shown to be more effective in creating social change, than violent conflict. Why nonviolent resistance beats violent force in effecting social, political change

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The protestors at the Maspero TV building in Egypt were non-violent and the army ran them over with tanks and the police shot at them and a bunch of them died. The tax resistors at Beit Sahour in Palestine (80% Christian) were non-violent, and the Israeli army responded by arresting their leaders, raiding the houses of local families and seizing millions of dollars worth of personal property, cutting the town's telephone lines, and blocking food shipments, international aid, and human rights monitors from entering for nearly two months. Surprise, surprise, it didn't magically end the Israeli occupation, just like the peaceful demonstrators at Maspero didn't magically end the Egyptian state's persecution of the Coptic people. In both cases, it only gave the state another chance to do the same thing over and over again.

I have no doubt that the post-doc researcher at your link is correct, insofar as she outlines the conditions under which non-violence is more effective (in situations where there is "large and diverse participation that's sustained"), but I question how often or to what degree those conditions are met when it comes to conflict involving Christians in most of the Middle East, North Africa, or the Caucasus. And I only even say "most of" because a situation like that of Lebanon which even today has something like 38% Christians and a power-sharing agreement that guarantees Christians representatives and open participation in the political system is not really comparable in any way to the situation in Egypt where even though they are likely 10% of the society, the Copts have nothing like that, and the attempt of heavily-Christian areas to elect Christians to political office have resulted in immediate and very threatening protests from local Muslim Brotherhood types that have made it clear that it would be a very bad idea if the Christian would actually attempt to take office (and so he didn't; this was in Qena in 2011, and the man's name was Emad Mikhael). The two Coptic governors that have been in place since then (including the first Coptic woman in the nation's history, Manal Awad Mikhael) were both appointed in 2018 and so far have yet to be killed or forced out, but since they were directly appointed by Gen. Al Sisi, I don't know that this is in any way a victory for non-violence so much as a demonstration as to why Christians in the region seem to prefer military strongmen to democratic regimes. Something could probably be claimed here about the "large and diverse participation" being mostly on the side of those who want to shut Christians out of public life in so far as is possible, but that's the weakness of Egypt's secular society on display, I suppose.

Anyway, point is that there are situations like that, and then there are even worse situations like in Artsakh (formerly Nagorno-Karabagh Republic) where it is a very small and concentrated population (150,000) of a distinct ethnic and religious minority living on land that is recognized internationally as belonging to a sovereign state that is actively hostile towards that minority and its preexisting claims to not just that particular territory within the state's own borders, but even its presence in the region more generally in places where it is not a minority (this is why Ignatius' earlier question concerning when the Turks and Azeris demand even more of Armenia makes sense: the conflict between the Armenians and their Islamicized neighbors goes back many centuries, and was not answered definitely with the genocides of the early 20th century, since of course Armenia proper or 'Eastern Armenia' still exists).

Our only options are not kill or be killed. We can work for a better, more just, more open society without killing.

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Yes. We can do that in modern, pluralistic, secular, western liberal democracies. The dynamics of other societies, however, are not like they are in Australia, or New Zealand, or the United States. And they're not going to magically become that because you put down your rifle and start singing John Lennon's "Imagine" or whatever.

I am arguing against the narrative that "war is the only answer," not arguing that we should therefore not seek change.

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I don't know if that's the narrative you were responding to in the other thread (I didn't read it), but that's not my narrative. I'm talking about self-defense to keep from being an easy target, not offense or colonization or any of this other stuff. Unless or until we can all live in a world where sending a strongly-worded letter to the U.N. guarantees the safety (on the ground, in real time) of the world's most vulnerable minorities like the Syriacs/Assyrians, Artsakh Armenians, and others, the reality is that the only thing the unguarded henhouse provides is an easy meal for the fox, not safety for the chicks.

Heck, even U.N. peace keepers carry guns!

Basically, if I were to follow this logic then all modern nation states are illegitimate entities, since they have behind them the ultimate use of force if someone disobeys their laws.

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sounds like corporate unaccountability being discussed