War and Peace

[Paidiske]

If you do not hold the historic Church, which Anglicans claim to be part of, as important then I suppose I understand how you might not care about this issue...In your case you have a Church which has cooperated with civil authorities in many violations of modern liberal values you seem to espouse.

It's important, but that doesn't mean it was always right. Christians have been wrong about all sorts of things over time. I'm fairly comfortable with the fact that the Church exists in the gap between ideal and reality.

In the case of the latter, I would ask, could you at least admit that Christianity has benefitted from warfare? You might think it appalling but it is the truth.

It depends what you mean by "benefitted from." I think I said earlier that God brings about good even when we do evil things, but that doesn't mean we should have done them, or that God couldn't have brought about good without us doing evil things.

You expect an entire nation of Christian Armenians to vacate their nation and leave it to Muslims.

That is a misrepresentation of my view. I put forward that if the choices were to commit mass killing (war) or leave, then leaving was the better choice. I have also insisted right through this thread that those are not the only choices.

If this were a thread where the topic was "what is the ideal approach to the problem of conflict in Armenia?" my first answer would not be massed refugees, but would be about looking for diplomatic and political approaches.

You make an exception here for the use of force by secular power. Why then is wrong for secular power to engage in warfare, in particular in the defence of their citizens when you justify secular power executing someone under certain circumstances?

I was not arguing for the use of force to the point of killing, though. I think I was pretty clear that I consider killing an abuse of power by the state.

Why is wrong for the Armenian Military to resist Turkish and Azerbaijani occupation of Armenia. While it’s okay for the Armenian government to force their citizens to do things they might not necessarily want to do, like pay taxes. Explain to me.

It's wrong to set out to kill people. It's not wrong for a country to place upon its citizens a responsibility to meet the basic needs of its citizens through contributing financially. Especially when those citizens have the option to choose either to leave or to remain as citizens with the rights and responsibilities that that entails.

That power included the use of arms. Which is what we’re primarily concerned with here. It forever changed the dynamic between how Christians view military matters, instead of mostly being apart from it, Christians were required to be in it to maintain the state. This is part of the consequence of Christians have secular power and if warfare is utterly impermissible, why should Constantine’s assumption of such power be considered a neutral or good thing?

Power ought to be judged by its fruits. Christians have used their power to do good things, and to do bad things. Surely we don't have to say, "Well, some good happened, so we have to acclaim the whole package deal," rather than engaging critically with our history?

Then Christians cannot be part of the military, they cannot be in the police, they cannot defend others and they cannot resist an evildoer if the evildoer demands their life. They especially cannot assume power in a secular state that uses such means and controls the lives of people.

The military is definitely a problem. The police only if the police set out to kill. Defending... needs some unpacking. Self-defence I have already made some allowance for, if it is truly kill or be killed.

As for assuming power in a secular state, that also needs nuancing. If that power is used directly to kill, yep, that's a problem. If the lines of power are more diffuse, then perhaps one can argue for seeking positions of power in order to work for peace, justice, change, etc. Certainly that would be my urging to voting citizens of modern nations. Use your citizenship - your power in this system - to work for good.

You’ve already done this in the case of Brentan Tarrent and said it would be justifiable to kill him before he killed fifty Muslims. Maybe you could then consider why Christians historically thought it necessary to kill others in the historical scenarios we’ve been talking about.

I agreed that I could see the point of a utilitarian argument in his case, but also pushed for realising that intervention before he killed need not have been about killing him.

Part of the problem is that the argument "I am going to kill x, to prevent many more future deaths," relies on our ability to predict the future outcomes of our actions. And that ability is, to put it bluntly, pretty pathetic for most people.

I don’t pay tax in New Zealand, refuse to give up my house, refuse to go to jail and refuse every which way to acknowledge the government, they will at some point kill me. They might not want to, they might even be hesitant about it, but they will in the end kill me, if I resist enough. Same goes for Australia, USA and any other western nation. You denying this reality doesn’t mean a thing.

I've only ever spent a week in New Zealand, but I know Australia well enough to know that in Australia in that scenario, you'd probably end up in prison, and you might be treated pretty roughly at some point along the journey, but you're unlikely to be killed unless you're actually a threat to someone else.

Like giving him everything he wants? Obeying his laws and demands? Again. This isn’t realistic.

So you say. I say life mostly isn't a binary of kill-or-be-killed. I find that highly unrealistic.

International pressure backed by military might. Why would the Islamic nations listen western countries without the implicit threat of military intervention? I might prefer the Islamic nations be left to themselves but at the same time if the world did that do you think there would be any protections for minorities in those nations?

Military might, economic pressures, diplomatic pressures... it doesn't have to be all about (even an implied) threat to kill. Interestingly, economic sanctions have been found effective and under-used, both in bringing about change, and in reducing conflict. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/using-economic-sanctions-prevent-deadly-conflict

I would also like your response to the point I made about Dhimitude. You seemed to imply the reasons Dhimmis as a legal concept disappeared within Islamic countries is due to self-development within Islam regarding non-Muslims.

It's not an area of history that I know well, but from what I can see on a quick read, it seems that it was (in the Ottoman Empire, at least) in part due to the diplomatic pressure of European nations who were allies of Turkey.

Also I would like you to address that gradual conversion of the Egyptians to Islam from Christianity and explain how them being peaceful (for the most part) benefitted the Copts of Egypt.

This seems off topic to me. It does not take up the question of the ethics of war. We cannot justify war by its "benefits," real or hypothetical.

Because I brought the example of the crusade for Egypt in my first post. Would it have been worse, had the Crusaders actually won that war?

Worse than what? Losing it? What if it had not been fought at all, and a peace had been built between the powers in that area; might that not have been even better?

Because you suggested that the Armenians duty as Christians was to run away from their homeland. They have no right to expect to live there peacefully and therefore they should migrate elsewhere. How is that resistance instead of capitulation?

I suggested that being a refugee was better than participating in war. I did not suggest that that was the only possible approach to the situation.

 

[dzheremi]

Since I gave up on this accursed thread some pages ago, I missed the part where it was claimed that there are no dhimmis anymore in the modern world. Not so. The gizya tax was reimposed on some of the villages in Egypt during the time of the Muslim Brotherhood as recently as a few years ago (source). It was also infamously one of the three options (the other two being to leave or be killed) given to Christians in a statement read out by ISIS leaders in Mosul after that group took the city in 2014. (source)

Since the imposition of the gizya tax is the principle condition by which Christians are made to "feel themselves subdued" to Muslim authority (as per Qur'an 9:29), its reappearance in the modern day is a de facto indication that there are dhimmis in the modern age, to say nothing of more generalized poor treatment which non-Muslims can rightly claim they are subjected to which is often given Islamic backing by those who engage in it.

 

[Paidiske]

Since I gave up on this accursed thread some pages ago, I missed the part where it was claimed that there are no dhimmis anymore in the modern world. Not so. The gizya tax was reimposed on some of the villages in Egypt during the time of the Muslim Brotherhood as recently as a few years ago (source). It was also infamously one of the three options (the other two being to leave or be killed) given to Christians in a statement read out by ISIS leaders in Mosul after that group took the city in 2014. (source)

Since the imposition of the gizya tax is the principle condition by which Christians are made to "feel themselves subdued" to Muslim authority (as per Qur'an 9:29), its reappearance in the modern day is a de facto indication that there are dhimmis in the modern age, to say nothing of more generalized poor treatment which non-Muslims can rightly claim they are subjected to which is often given Islamic backing by those who engage in it.

I believe I said that there are no Muslim countries which impose dhimmitude. I am aware that some terrorist groups have sought to impose it, and I am also aware that that has not been a lasting situation.

 

[Paidiske]

I don't know why you're even arguing this point.

Because it was suggested that warfare was the appropriate response to the dhimmi system. And I am pointing out that that system no longer holds sway, and not because warfare crushed it. You point out that the people of Egypt decided they don't want this; my point exactly! A war wasn't required to sweep it away.

 

[dzheremi]

Because it was suggested that warfare was the appropriate response to the dhimmi system. And I am pointing out that that system no longer holds sway, and not because warfare crushed it. You point out that the people of Egypt decided they don't want this; my point exactly! A war wasn't required to sweep it away.

Yeah, but you claimed it just didn't exist in our time, but it does exist. Or rather, it has existed as recently as 2014, which is for all intents and purposes is the same as today. The fact that it was subsequently done away with is not the point. Also, a war may not have been necessary to get rid of it in the Egyptian case, but a military takeover was. That's what replaced Morsi and the MB. Does that mean that you are in favor of military takeovers in lieu of war? That would be kind of strange, for obvious reasons.

 

[Paidiske]

Does that mean that you are in favor of military takeovers in lieu of war?

Generally, no. However, this thread is about whether or not war is justified. One attempted justification that I am challenging is "war is justified because it is necessary to bring about desired social change." I'm pointing out that desired social change can be brought about without war, so... that kind of sinks that argument.

 

[dzheremi]

Generally, no. However, this thread is about whether or not war is justified. One attempted justification that I am challenging is "war is justified because it is necessary to bring about desired social change." I'm pointing out that desired social change can be brought about without war, so... that kind of sinks that argument.

But a military takeover, while not being a war, can involve all the things that you have said you abhor about war: extrajudicial killings, oppression of people, forcing one side's will upon the other, etc. I'm willing to bet that the MB supporters who didn't want Morsi removed by the military coup feel their rights very much violated, to say nothing of how a group of them were killed by the state for protesting (a much more flagrant violation, if we assume that they should have the same right to stand up to the military that the earlier revolution fought for when taking down Mubarak).

You are still avoiding taking any firm stance beyond pointing to things that you think are bad and saying that they are, in fact, bad. If you support the military coup in Egypt, then fine, but then you'd have to amend all the arguments you've made against the use of force and the neglect of the others' will. If you are not in support of the coup, then fine to that, but you are vindicating your interlocutor's view that you would do nothing as the rights of minorities like the Copts (and others who don't generally enter the conversation in Egypt, like Bahai and Atheists) are systematically stripped away, and primitive Islamic prohibitions are placed upon them. Not taking any kind of stance would mean that you de facto support the Islamists, in this situation.

 

[Paidiske]

You are still avoiding taking any firm stance beyond pointing to things that you think are bad and saying that they are, in fact, bad.

But from my point of view, that's the entire point of this thread. Someone said that war isn't evil. I'm saying that's a deeply problematic position for a Christian. It is evil. That's really the only line I'm in this thread to argue.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

It's important, but that doesn't mean it was always right. Christians have been wrong about all sorts of things over time. I'm fairly comfortable with the fact that the Church exists in the gap between ideal and reality.

We’ve been wrong about defending ourselves and others when necessary for 1700 years? I would suggest even longer than that, but it goes to the very credibility of Christianity itself that we lived and tolerated ourselves in that paradigm for so long.

It depends what you mean by "benefitted from." I think I said earlier that God brings about good even when we do evil things, but that doesn't mean we should have done them, or that God couldn't have brought about good without us doing evil things.

You’ve admitted earlier that peaceful outcomes are not always possible. I think you would have to admit that peaceful outcomes are not always desirable. Unless you think it desirable for Christians to always be forced to give up what they own when an aggressor comes and demands what they desire.

I actually agree that God can bring about good from evil. The problem with your view is that there can be no resistance to evil. Evil must be tolerated, it must be allowed to do what it wants and never be stopped. If the Muslims demanded Egypt in the 600s, well that was evil, but we have no right to oppose the Muslims. If the Soviets demand a Holodomor, well, Ukrainians must suffer through it.

That is a misrepresentation of my view. I put forward that if the choices were to commit mass killing (war) or leave, then leaving was the better choice. I have also insisted right through this thread that those are not the only choices.

If this were a thread where the topic was "what is the ideal approach to the problem of conflict in Armenia?" my first answer would not be massed refugees, but would be about looking for diplomatic and political approaches.

Your definition of warfare as mass killing is inadequate for describing the quality of the war being fought. If for instance an invading army is killed, that is a mass killing but is that an unjustified mass killing against a foreign aggressor?

What is the better choice in your scenario? Running away, leaving your home and property to the aggressor and living life constantly as a refugee. How does approaching things politically actually help the Armenians? The Azerbaijanis demand land that Armenians live on. You would see them concede that land to maintain the peace. Maybe in the future Azerbaijan demands more land, maybe a direct border with Turkey. Let’s suppose they are unflinching and unwilling to compromise or accept any other outcome.

What is your political solution to this problem? It’s for the Armenians to retreat further and loose more of their already small country. Because remember, killing, even in self-defence is never an option per your worldview.

Let’s then suppose Azerbaijan wants the rest of Armenia. They have already destroyed all of the Churches in the lands they control. They have wiped out historical Armenian presence and say that the land Armenians live on is rightfully theirs. What is the solution per your worldview? Surrender, give up the land and the Armenians go live in Russia I guess. That would come with it’s own problems.

How is this resistance? How is this not just endless capitulation? All because you don’t think it right for the Armenians to defend themselves.

I was not arguing for the use of force to the point of killing, though. I think I was pretty clear that I consider killing an abuse of power by the state.

Except you accept it as the legitimate means by which the state has control over law and order. Without that ultimate threat, what is a government except a very stern Mother who tut tuts her child but doesn’t do anything when the child misbehaves?

You accept the system we all live in and that means you accept the potential for the government to kill you, to imprison you, to take your wealth and various other restrictions. You might not approve of it in certain circumstances, but ultimately do if forced to it. Why? Because order is better than anarchy.

It's wrong to set out to kill people. It's not wrong for a country to place upon its citizens a responsibility to meet the basic needs of its citizens through contributing financially. Especially when those citizens have the option to choose either to leave or to remain as citizens with the rights and responsibilities that that entails.

This is what I mean by your one sided consideration. Life must be preserved, at all cost. How far are you willing to go in this regard? Should the Christians during the Cyprian persecution have offered sacrifice to Caesar to preserve their lives or was it worth them losing it? I think you believe it was worth Cyprian dying for his faith in Christ, rather than sacrificing to Caesar. Does this mean you hold life cheaply?

We can extend this to those who defend their country from those who would seek to destroy it and their own people. The reason why a defense is mounted is because we view that life lived by the Armenians as valuable and worth the cost of defending it.

Power ought to be judged by its fruits. Christians have used their power to do good things, and to do bad things. Surely we don't have to say, "Well, some good happened, so we have to acclaim the whole package deal," rather than engaging critically with our history?

I haven’t suggested once in this thread that we have to approve of everything Christians have done in war. I have only suggested that there were times when it was right for Christians to fight wars.

But you are ignoring my crucial point. Secular power comes with military might. No one can escape it. Even Jacinda here in New Zealand commands a Dingy somewhere with a gun attached to it. Christians assuming that power, the power of kings means they assume the power of life and death over their subjects and non-subjects/ citizens and non-citizens.

Given your radical pacificism how can you be neutral to the idea of Christian monarch/politician when part of their role involves forcing people to do things and killing others? Not here arguing that all politicians should throw themselves into war or force, only here recognizing that it is part of the job description. By your understanding of Christianity, Constantine should have surrendered to Maxentius immediately upon being converted to Christianity.

I thank God he didn’t.

The military is definitely a problem. The police only if the police set out to kill. Defending... needs some unpacking. Self-defence I have already made some allowance for, if it is truly kill or be killed.

The police are also a problem per your view. If someone for instance here in New Zealand has a copy of the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto they are liable to prison time. The Police must arrest that person for owning literature and if they refuse to come peacefully the person must be apprehended. This can involve forcible restraint and if they resist too far, killing them or incapacitating them.

As for assuming power in a secular state, that also needs nuancing. If that power is used directly to kill, yep, that's a problem. If the lines of power are more diffuse, then perhaps one can argue for seeking positions of power in order to work for peace, justice, change, etc. Certainly that would be my urging to voting citizens of modern nations. Use your citizenship - your power in this system - to work for good.

All political power of law has behind it the threat of force and ultimately death. If I don’t pay my taxes the government might come after me. If I own an unregistered gun I got from a relative the government might come after me. If the law is not enforced it goes unheeded and ignored and subsequently becomes powerless. In New Zealand until recently there was a blasphemy law which required up to one year in prison for blasphemy. It was never really enforced and hence it was a dead law and didn’t matter.

If the government did seek to enforce the law, it would have required the use of force behind it.

Hence, why should any Christian even consider secular power? When it ultimately involves them enforcing laws by the use of compulsion and violence? Why wasn’t it a mistake for Christians to ever assume that duty under your pacifist worldview?

Part of the problem is that the argument "I am going to kill x, to prevent many more future deaths," relies on our ability to predict the future outcomes of our actions. And that ability is, to put it bluntly, pretty pathetic for most people.

The problem being that even in scenarios where losing a conflict means the loss of everything, life, identity, property and human flourishing, you’re still saying that it’s never permissible to fight back and resist an aggressor.

There have been examples I’ve given of when Christians won in warfare they won historically and in long term. The Reconquista completely removed from Spain, Islam. Alfred the Great’s victory over the Vikings meant Christian domination of Great Britain. There are examples where Christians submitting to an aggressor has been detrimental in the long run. The Greeks were forced to surrender their best men to become janissaries as boys. Egypt is thoroughly Islamized. Russia became the Soviet Union.

It would be a more principled position if you abandoned utility completely in regards to Brentan Tarrent. If you accept on the basis of utility that it was okay for Brentan Tarrent to be killed during the act, then why do you think it wrong for the Visigoths to defend themselves against the Muslims? Or the Armenians to defend themselves against the Turks? If utility is at least a partial facor of consideration in your mind it would appear that many a defensive war is justified. Your pacifism is then undermined.

Because I don’t look at it from a perspective of utility I have a different view. I look at it from a perspective of justice. Of divine law. Muslims don’t deserve to be gunned down, even if I despise their religion and the perpetrator doesn’t have any particular right to life after having committed such an atrocity.

I've only ever spent a week in New Zealand, but I know Australia well enough to know that in Australia in that scenario, you'd probably end up in prison, and you might be treated pretty roughly at some point along the journey, but you're unlikely to be killed unless you're actually a threat to someone else.

You’re ignoring the point of my example. At some point they will kill you for violating a law. That might not be the first option, it might only be the last, but they will do it if forced. Hence why I don’t understand why you accept the system we live in. I accept it because I am comfortable with government having that sort of authority over my life. Why do you? Furthermore I am comfortable of there being a New Zealand military. Not so comfortable in how small and pathetic it is.

Military might, economic pressures, diplomatic pressures... it doesn't have to be all about (even an implied) threat to kill. Interestingly, economic sanctions have been found effective and under-used, both in bringing about change, and in reducing conflict. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/using-economic-sanctions-prevent-deadly-conflict[/QUOTE]

Doesn’t reduce my argument about military might being a crucial factor on how people behave or run their countries. If the West were not hegemonic in this regard the Arab world would care little for what we think, much like China doesn't care about what we think about their treatment of the Uighers.

This seems off topic to me. It does not take up the question of the ethics of war. We cannot justify war by its "benefits," real or hypothetical.

It’s relevant to looking at war for its beneficial outcomes. Had the Byzantines successfully repelled the Muslims maybe Egypt might still be Christian today. Not to ignore the problems internal to Egypt and Rome at the time but that would seem to me a more preferable outcome than the Egypt we see today.

You’re complete unwillingness to engage with how your beliefs might have been applied in the Church leads me to think you have not engaged thoroughly enough with the history.

Here’s perhaps the ultimate question. Would it have been better if Christians had never resisted, remain perpetual refugees/slaves/servants and lower class peasants and never take up the sword? Both in its secular uses and it’s warfare use? Would it have been better if Christians had remained marginal, like the Samaritans? Powerless?

I can’t think that it would and I'm willing to accept the bad Christians have done. Repudiate certain parts of our heritage, but why reject it all? Why think the Reconquista was not worth the cost or Alfred's Wessex was not worth preserving? Just saying human life has value doesn't seem an adequate consideration. Human life is about how it is lived, as much as it's about the organism simply living.

Worse than what? Losing it? What if it had not been fought at all, and a peace had been built between the powers in that area; might that not have been even better?

Perhaps given the loss of Egypt it could be argued that the fifth crusade was a mistaken venture. Yet I am asking you a specific hypothetical wherein the Crusaders won and liberated the Egyptian Copts from Dhimmi status. Also their win would have meant the free ability of missionaries to reach the Muslim Egyptians there and convert them to Christianity.

Would you consider this a bad outcome, were it to have happened?

 

[Paidiske]

You’ve admitted earlier that peaceful outcomes are not always possible.

No. Not sure why you would suggest that.

I actually agree that God can bring about good from evil. The problem with your view is that there can be no resistance to evil.

For what feels like the umpteenth time, that's not my view. I simply don't view "resistance" as existing in only one meaningful form.

Your definition of warfare as mass killing is inadequate for describing the quality of the war being fought. If for instance an invading army is killed, that is a mass killing but is that an unjustified mass killing against a foreign aggressor?

I'm not really concerned with the "quality" of the war. And if there was any option other than mass killing, then from a Christian point of view, it's pretty hard to justify taking the mass killing option.

Except you accept it as the legitimate means by which the state has control over law and order. Without that ultimate threat, what is a government except a very stern Mother who tut tuts her child but doesn’t do anything when the child misbehaves?

I don't accept it. I continue to insist that I live in a state which does not hold the threat of death over its citizens, and yet somehow we manage not to descend into anarchy. Because life is just not that binary.

This is what I mean by your one sided consideration. Life must be preserved, at all cost. How far are you willing to go in this regard? Should the Christians during the Cyprian persecution have offered sacrifice to Caesar to preserve their lives or was it worth them losing it? I think you believe it was worth Cyprian dying for his faith in Christ, rather than sacrificing to Caesar. Does this mean you hold life cheaply?

I think the choice not to avoid martyrdom - for oneself - is in a different category, because of its witness to Christ. We cannot say that of killing others.

I have only suggested that there were times when it was right for Christians to fight wars.

And I'm suggesting that war is never "right."

But you are ignoring my crucial point. Secular power comes with military might. No one can escape it. Even Jacinda here in New Zealand commands a Dingy somewhere with a gun attached to it. Christians assuming that power, the power of kings means they assume the power of life and death over their subjects and non-subjects/ citizens and non-citizens.

I am not ignoring that point, I am rejecting it. The state should not hold the power of life and death over their subjects/citizens/residents, and the state should not seek to kill the subjects/citizens/residents of other states. That is an abuse of the power the state holds. That it is in fact an almost ubiquitous practice and has been for millennia does not make it anything other than a pervasive symptom of humanity's fallenness and sinfulness.

The police are also a problem per your view. If someone for instance here in New Zealand has a copy of the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto they are liable to prison time. The Police must arrest that person for owning literature and if they refuse to come peacefully the person must be apprehended. This can involve forcible restraint and if they resist too far, killing them or incapacitating them.

Yes, I acknowledge that confronted with someone who is being directly violent, the police may end up killing in self-defence or the defence of others. That is different to a policing system where the state insists on the right to kill as something not done incidentally and in extremis (and always treated as a serious aberration) but as an intentional aspect of the system.

Hence, why should any Christian even consider secular power? When it ultimately involves them enforcing laws by the use of compulsion and violence? Why wasn’t it a mistake for Christians to ever assume that duty under your pacifist worldview?

For the opportunity to do good; to serve the needs of the community, to transform injustice, to pursue peace, and so on. I said above that if it involves them directly in violence that's a problem, otherwise a good argument can be made to be working for good within a compromised system (that's basically the reality of our lives anyway, after all).

The problem being that even in scenarios where losing a conflict means the loss of everything, life, identity, property and human flourishing, you’re still saying that it’s never permissible to fight back and resist an aggressor.

Except that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you have a choice between killing and not killing, killing is not an ethical option. I have already made an exception for self defence. And I have made the point that there are many ways to resist aggressors. And I have made the point that our global community needs much better structures in place to deal with aggressors in ways which are not war.

To summarise this as suggesting I'm saying, "If someone's going to kill you, you may not fight back" is a gross misrepresentation of my position.

It would be a more principled position if you abandoned utility completely in regards to Brentan Tarrent. If you accept on the basis of utility that it was okay for Brentan Tarrent to be killed during the act, then why do you think it wrong for the Visigoths to defend themselves against the Muslims? Or the Armenians to defend themselves against the Turks? If utility is at least a partial facor of consideration in your mind it would appear that many a defensive war is justified. Your pacifism is then undermined.

Because the argument is being made about Brentan Tarrent at the point that he's killing people. Okay, at that point you're out of options. But the argument about warfare has to start long before the shooting does. Pacifism isn't just about "not fighting back," it's about building the system in which the fighting never starts.

You’re ignoring the point of my example. At some point they will kill you for violating a law. That might not be the first option, it might only be the last, but they will do it if forced.

Short of me credibly threatening someone else's life, I simply do not believe this to be accurate. My government won't kill me unless I'm holding a knife to someone else's throat.

You’re complete unwillingness to engage with how your beliefs might have been applied in the Church leads me to think you have not engaged thoroughly enough with the history.

"You don't agree with me, so you must be ignorant." Mm-hmm.

Here’s perhaps the ultimate question. Would it have been better if Christians had never resisted, remain perpetual refugees/slaves/servants and lower class peasants and never take up the sword? Both in its secular uses and it’s warfare use? Would it have been better if Christians had remained marginal, like the Samaritans? Powerless?

Except here's the grand irony. Christians didn't cease to be a class of mostly slaves/servants (and women) by taking up the sword. They persuaded those in power to become Christian through their peaceful witness. They didn't need warfare to change the world or their standing in it.

Would you consider this a bad outcome, were it to have happened?

Maybe not a bad outcome, but still an unethical course of action.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

No. Not sure why you would suggest that.

Let me ask then and clarify. Do you view a peaceful outcome as the best of all possible outcomes?

For what feels like the umpteenth time, that's not my view. I simply don't view "resistance" as existing in only one meaningful form.

Then what is effective resistance in your view? Here’s what you’ve suggested thus far. Leave and surrender all that you have, your nation, your property and your lives. Under no circumstances fight back.

I'm not really concerned with the "quality" of the war. And if there was any option other than mass killing, then from a Christian point of view, it's pretty hard to justify taking the mass killing option.

Because you refuse to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. You’re essentially arguing that the aggressor has the right to take whatever he wants because to resist the aggressor could mean the mass death of the aggressor if a defensive war effort is launched.

It’s a suicidal idea you have of how people should behave.

I don't accept it. I continue to insist that I live in a state which does not hold the threat of death over its citizens, and yet somehow we manage not to descend into anarchy. Because life is just not that binary.

Ignoring what the state must ultimately do to enforce order is not a good argument. You can’t deny my fundamental premise and so you’re left to deny even reality itself.

I think the choice not to avoid martyrdom - for oneself - is in a different category, because of its witness to Christ. We cannot say that of killing others.

We can and have. You just ignore the instances of where this has happened and how it has been justified. Even you admit blood must be spilled at a certain point, so you’ve departed somewhat from your pacifist position. The only problem I see is your equivocation of all deaths and all lives. As if the death of a criminal or soldier is the same as the death of an average person/non-combatant obeying the law.

And I'm suggesting that war is never "right."

Hence you or anyone with your ideas are not to be relied on to defend others and their interests.

I am not ignoring that point, I am rejecting it. The state should not hold the power of life and death over their subjects/citizens/residents, and the state should not seek to kill the subjects/citizens/residents of other states. That is an abuse of the power the state holds. That it is in fact an almost ubiquitous practice and has been for millennia does not make it anything other than a pervasive symptom of humanity's fallenness and sinfulness.

The state does hold the power of life and death over its citizens. That’s how it maintains its power. You’re imagining Utopia instead of looking at the world for how it actually is. The question is not how to achieve Utopia but how we do the best we can in a fallen world, in order to do that justice must be met out.

Yes, I acknowledge that confronted with someone who is being directly violent, the police may end up killing in self-defence or the defence of others. That is different to a policing system where the state insists on the right to kill as something not done incidentally and in extremis (and always treated as a serious aberration) but as an intentional aspect of the system.

What state argues that it has a right to kill people at a whim? All states contrive a reason for their policies and violators of those policies are met with state force. You continue to ignore what ultimately backs up the power of a state. It’s force of arms and the sword, or in our case a gun.

For the opportunity to do good; to serve the needs of the community, to transform injustice, to pursue peace, and so on. I said above that if it involves them directly in violence that's a problem, otherwise a good argument can be made to be working for good within a compromised system (that's basically the reality of our lives anyway, after all).

So you think Constantine’s desire to rule was good? Despite the use of warfare he used? We might be making progress.

To summarise this as suggesting I'm saying, "If someone's going to kill you, you may not fight back" is a gross misrepresentation of my position.

Right. Your solution also involves perpetually running. I guess you might have approved of the Turkish telling the Armenians that they can live in the desert and nowhere else.

Because the argument is being made about Brentan Tarrent at the point that he's killing people. Okay, at that point you're out of options. But the argument about warfare has to start long before the shooting does. Pacifism isn't just about "not fighting back," it's about building the system in which the fighting never starts.

That system falls apart the moment an aggressor comes along. Who does not care for the rules or the system you have established. Hence the failure of pacifism, it cannot effectively defend itself against an aggressor, and there will always be an aggressor.

"You don't agree with me, so you must be ignorant." Mm-hmm.

If you’re willing to suggest a viable historical analysis of how warfare would have benefitted the Church more if it had never participated in or condoned in part the use of it, I’m all ears. Your solutions of just running away, never retaliating in kind and accepting Dhimmi status leave me wondering how you could make the case.

Except here's the grand irony. Christians didn't cease to be a class of mostly slaves/servants (and women) by taking up the sword. They persuaded those in power to become Christian through their peaceful witness. They didn't need warfare to change the world or their standing in it.

In the context of the Roman Empire, which largely tolerated us. Not in an Islamic context, which has already been explained to you. In the Roman Empire there was toleration of various credos and the allowance of Churches to operate without massive persecution. When persecutions were done early on in the empire they were done on the basis if someone had been accused as a Christian. If they refused to sacrifice to the gods, then they were executed. This allowed for communities at large to survive, while individuals were punished. Hence the growth of Christianity which appealed not only to the lower classes, but influential and powerful people within the higher strata of society. Paul was not averse to the help of the wealthy. By the time of the more mass persecutions Christians were already large enough to weather the Emperor of that particular time.

The Islamic context is radically different. As a religion it demanded top place in the pantheons of ideas. All non-Muslims are second class citizens. They may not preach their creeds, they may not display their religion publically (no crosses or Christian paraphernalia), they must pay the Jizya and feel that they are subdued to their Islamic overlords. The children of any Muslim must be raised Islamic. Muslim men could marry Christian women but Islamic women can only marry Islamic men. You have here a religion and society that sets up barriers and makes effective missionary work all but impossible. What happens to the Christian missionary in an Islamic community during the early to late-medieval era? He is killed because that violates Islamic law.

The thing about Christians under Islamic law is that they were mostly pacifist. They mostly didn't resist Islamic rule. Bishops encouraged their people to pay the Jizya and not resist their overlords. I think that was a wise decision on practical grounds. Those Christian communities were not able to resist Islamic occupation effectively and why die needlessly?

Yet when you suggest that the answer to the Islamic Jihad was to not fight back but instead simply submit or run away. I do have to think you know little of the history I am talking about. I think it’s an insane position to say the Reconquista wasn’t worth it as a Christian.

Maybe not a bad outcome, but still an unethical course of action.

Given that the outcome was not bad, I would ask another question. Do you prefer that outcome to alternative? A world wherein Christians never resisted Islamic force with warfare?

 

[Paidiske]

Let me ask then and clarify. Do you view a peaceful outcome as the best of all possible outcomes?

I'm still not quite sure what you're getting at here, but if an outcome is not peaceful, then I certainly don't regard it as good.

Then what is effective resistance in your view? Here’s what you’ve suggested thus far. Leave and surrender all that you have, your nation, your property and your lives. Under no circumstances fight back.

I have also talked about the need for a global willingness to impose economic sanctions, engage in diplomacy; I've talked about the need to identify and address possible grievances and issues before it gets to fighting. I've talked about active peacebuilding.

Because you refuse to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. You’re essentially arguing that the aggressor has the right to take whatever he wants because to resist the aggressor could mean the mass death of the aggressor if a defensive war effort is launched.

A defender is not a non-combatant. And no, I'm not arguing that might makes right. I am arguing for discernment in how to respond to the wrongs others commit.

Ignoring what the state must ultimately do to enforce order is not a good argument. You can’t deny my fundamental premise and so you’re left to deny even reality itself.

I think your fundamental premise - that states all hold the threat of death over their citizens, and must do so in order to function - is nonsense.

Hence you or anyone with your ideas are not to be relied on to defend others and their interests.

I'll defend others and their interests in all sorts of ways. Heck, this discussion started with me defending men and their interests by pointing out that treating men's lives as disposable in war was wrong!

So you think Constantine’s desire to rule was good?

I can't speak to the wholesomeness of Constantine's personal motivations. But I'm not saying it's inherently wrong to have - or desire to have - power, as long as it is used for good and not for evil. Since warfare is evil, though, the desire to war is wrong.

That system falls apart the moment an aggressor comes along. Who does not care for the rules or the system you have established.

An aggressor would have no appeal - no followers - if we worked to remove the reasons people war in the first place.

I think it’s an insane position to say the Reconquista wasn’t worth it as a Christian.

And I think it's profoundly out of step with the gospel to say any ideological gain was worth ten million deaths, so... we're probably at an impasse there. As I said earlier, an irresolvable values clash.

Given that the outcome was not bad, I would ask another question. Do you prefer that outcome to alternative? A world wherein Christians never resisted Islamic force with warfare?

We cannot know what the outcomes of the alternative action would be. But this thread is not about what outcomes I "prefer." It's about whether war can ever be considered good. And I still say no.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I'm still not quite sure what you're getting at here, but if an outcome is not peaceful, then I certainly don't regard it as good.

Many scenarios and historical examples have been laid out, all of which you suggest the violence done in them was unjustified. If you think King Alfred defending his realm and his Christian subjects was a worse outcome than simply just surrendering we live in different worlds.

I suppose I would ask this. Do you expect all Christians to be pacifists? If not, I can respect yours as a personal decision for yourself. But to force it on others, to expect it others and condemn all Christians of the past for not adhering to your ideas, that’s an almost Gnostic excess on the Christian restraint.

No Christian can advocate being like Genghis Khan, no Christian society can advocate simply surrendering or fleeing when an aggressor demand such. The latter is simply suicide if actually applied.

I have also talked about the need for a global willingness to impose economic sanctions, engage in diplomacy; I've talked about the need to identify and address possible grievances and issues before it gets to fighting. I've talked about active peacebuilding.

The thing with aggressive states is that they continue resist even under such pressures. Russia isn’t going to change any time soon because of economic sanctions and nor is North Korea, China or Poland, not that I think all those states are comparable. In fact, the policy you advocate directly harms the citizenry of those countries by denying them certain affordable goods. How is economic sanctions against a state good in your view of things? Because it doesn’t kill them but instead merely deprives the citizenry of essential things? Look at Venezuela, Maduro’s people might be starving but he and his soldiers are eating fine.

Bottom line is this. There’s a limit at the moment to what states feel they are able to accomplish, because other states keep each other in check by use of military might. Russia might be able to get away with annexing Crimea, but if it tried taking all of the Ukraine, they would likely start a war with Europe and the USA.

A defender is not a non-combatant. And no, I'm not arguing that might makes right. I am arguing for discernment in how to respond to the wrongs others commit.

I don’t believe I said a defender was a non-combatant. Only that you don’t distinguish between military targets and equate them all. I think you want to convey the assumption that all wars involve mass killings of civilians, which they don’t. Civilians we can all agree should be left alone, their life and property should remain unmolested. We should also be able to agree that within a fight there is a difference between an aggressor and a defender. Such as China during the Opium wars. Did they have no right to defend themselves against the British who forcibly wanted to sell Opium to their people? In my view China was completely justified to respond the way it did to British greed. I guess the Chinese should have fled to Siberia or something.

It’s as Zippy said before. Your entire position allows the aggressor to always win since there can be no just casus belli for a defensive war. Your reasoning being that this will involve mass killing of enemy combatants. Not all wars involve the mass slaughter of non-combatants though they can be caught in the cross fire.

I think your fundamental premise - that states all hold the threat of death over their citizens, and must do so in order to function - is nonsense.

I would suggest breaking the law enough to find out that I’m right, but that perhaps goes too far. Simply think about it. I’m not saying that governments use this power wrongly. Our governments which try to preserve life when they can are better than, say, China or North Korea, who will strait up kill you if you resist their communist Utopia. Still, in the end all states have behind them the use of compulsion by force which is backed by an explicit threat of violence.

The government will confiscate/redistribute your property and they will do it through the threat of force if you go against them enough.

I'll defend others and their interests in all sorts of ways. Heck, this discussion started with me defending men and their interests by pointing out that treating men's lives as disposable in war was wrong!

Except you won’t. You’ll tell the Armenians (and any oppressed person) leave Armenia (or the place they live in).

I can't speak to the wholesomeness of Constantine's personal motivations. But I'm not saying it's inherently wrong to have - or desire to have - power, as long as it is used for good and not for evil. Since warfare is evil, though, the desire to war is wrong.

You didn’t answer the question because I think it’s incredibly problematic for your worldview. At one time you’re arguing for the presence of Christian politicians, this despite the duties they take up (the use of the sword) and in Constantine’s case he had to fight numerous wars to establish his rule. I’m sure you know about the Milvian Bridge.

Constantine’s Christian rule and the good influence that came about as a result of that rule was built on a foundation of state force. Specifically the blood of Maxentius.

Was it good for Constantine as a Christian to go to war with Maxentius, even though it meant people would die? I tend to think it was. Your position would seem to involve Constantine surrendering to Maxentius and being executed. There could have been no Christian Emperor to exert influence over the Empire had your pacifist stance been the only position Christians could take.

An aggressor would have no appeal - no followers - if we worked to remove the reasons people war in the first place.

I think you vastly underestimate the human appetite for destruction or domination.

And I think it's profoundly out of step with the gospel to say any ideological gain was worth ten million deaths, so... we're probably at an impasse there. As I said earlier, an irresolvable values clash.

Your previous response suggested that there is opportunity for peaceful resistance in all contexts. I think your realize in the particular context of Islam that sort of resistance or attempt to work within that system are unsuccessful. Hence you cannot offer any means by which the Reconquista not happening results in a better future for Christendom. Ten million lives lost, yes a tragedy, one not caused by the Christians but by the aggressor, in this case Islam for seeking to impose itself on the Spaniards. You would prefer millions more future Christian lives be lost than those original ten million.

It is not profoundly out of step with the Gospel to free your fellow Christians from their bondage. It is not profoundly out of step to peacefully exist with non-believers. Both are possible within Christianity.

We cannot know what the outcomes of the alternative action would be. But this thread is not about what outcomes I "prefer." It's about whether war can ever be considered good. And I still say no.

I don’t see how there would be any other outcome if Christians had been utterly pacifistic. The Muslims come, they demand the Visigothic Kingdom. Well, we can’t fight them and they’re threatening to kill us, so I guess we have to give it to them. The Muslims come to Constantinople and demand the Basileos’ crown and titles. Well, we can’t fight and they’re threatening to kill us, guess we gotta give them what they want. It could go on till all the Christian Kingdoms are subdued and ruled by Muslims. With the laws imposed that I described in my previous post.

Sure, we might be allowed to exist as Christian communities, not all of them converted but that seems due to a proximity to Europe and Christian powers who might be willing to defend fellow Christians if they’re treated too badly.

 

[Paidiske]

I suppose I would ask this. Do you expect all Christians to be pacifists? If not, I can respect yours as a personal decision for yourself. But to force it on others, to expect it others and condemn all Christians of the past for not adhering to your ideas, that’s an almost Gnostic excess on the Christian restraint.

Expect? No. I expect Christians to be as diverse on this as on every other matter. And I certainly neither can nor would wish to force it on others. Nor do I condemn. However... I would uphold pacifism and peace-building as an ideal to which I, personally, think all Christians should aspire, (and for which I'm certainly willing to argue), even though I accept that they do not.

How is economic sanctions against a state good in your view of things? Because it doesn’t kill them but instead merely deprives the citizenry of essential things?

Well, of course we do not want to kill people indirectly by mass starvation, either. But I'm comfortable with depriving people of inessential things in preference to killing them.

I think you want to convey the assumption that all wars involve mass killings of civilians, which they don’t. Civilians we can all agree should be left alone, their life and property should remain unmolested.

That doesn't actually happen, though. Even if there were a war where no civilian were harmed (which there hasn't been), it would still be wrong because the mass killing of combatants is also wrong. But given that generally the deaths of civilians are more numerous than the deaths of combatants, it becomes even harder to make an argument for war, than if it were a matter of simply letting those who are willing to fight risk their lives.

We should also be able to agree that within a fight there is a difference between an aggressor and a defender.

Yes, there's a difference. Without an aggressor there would be no war, and the aggressor might be held more culpable. But the defender has choices, and chooses to resist violently, also.

Your entire position allows the aggressor to always win since there can be no just casus belli for a defensive war.

Only in a binary system where war/no war are seen as the only possible responses to the aggressor. But we don't live in a binary system. But yes, I agree there can be no just cause for war.

I would suggest breaking the law enough to find out that I’m right, but that perhaps goes too far.

*Consults diary* Sadly, I am a little busy for instructive experiments in law-breaking for... oh, at least the next decade. You know, a parish to run, a gospel to proclaim, doing all that women-in-ministry stuff you find so objectionable keeps me out of mischief, for the most part. I guess it has that going for it.

Except you won’t. You’ll tell the Armenians (and any oppressed person) leave Armenia (or the place they live in).

This misrepresentation of my position is becoming tiresome, and - since I have dispelled it several times now - is starting to feel willfully dishonest on your part.

In a binary choice, where it is leave or kill, I am saying one should leave. I am also insisting that we do not live in a world of binary choices.

You didn’t answer the question because I think it’s incredibly problematic for your worldview.

I didn't answer the question because you asked about Constantine's desires, and history does not allow me adequate knowledge of Constantine's desires to be able to answer.

At one time you’re arguing for the presence of Christian politicians, this despite the duties they take up (the use of the sword) and in Constantine’s case he had to fight numerous wars to establish his rule.

I'm arguing for the presence of Christian politicians who use the power of their various offices for good. I think it's clear by now that I don't agree that warfare would fall into that category.

Hence you cannot offer any means by which the Reconquista not happening results in a better future for Christendom. Ten million lives lost, yes a tragedy, one not caused by the Christians but by the aggressor, in this case Islam for seeking to impose itself on the Spaniards.

By definition, Christians were the aggressors in the Reconquista.

But let us take the question of "benefit." Suppose, for example, we were to agree that it's better to have money than not have money; poverty is not good. Your argument seems to me to be akin to the person who robs his neighbour, and then says, but I can justify my action because look at the benefit! I have money and that secures me a better future, and that is good! Sure, money and security is a good thing to have, but the means of acquiring it in this case were not right.

Similarly this argument about it being good for Christians to be socially dominant by means of war. Sure, it's nice to be socially dominant, it might even be objectively better for some residents of that area under Christianity than Islam, but the means of acquiring it (at the price of ten million lives) in this case were not right.

It's that simple in my mind. If it's not right to rob my neighbour for the "benefit" that accrues to me (or the group with which I identify), it's sure as heck not right to kill my neighbour for that reason.

You would prefer millions more future Christian lives be lost than those original ten million.

You simply can't predict alternative histories. That's pure speculation, and pretty meaningless.

It is not profoundly out of step with the Gospel to free your fellow Christians from their bondage.

At issue is the means by which one does that.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I must have missed this response somewhere along the way. Well let’s continue. I guess.

Expect? No. I expect Christians to be as diverse on this as on every other matter. And I certainly neither can nor would wish to force it on others. Nor do I condemn. However... I would uphold pacifism and peace-building as an ideal to which I, personally, think all Christians should aspire, (and for which I'm certainly willing to argue), even though I accept that they do not.

Do you accept it as an acceptable Christian position to hold though? Or do you think it an errant position which must be amended least one jeopardize one’s Christianity? The latter would seem like your position but I would like clarification.

I can accept that there are those Christians who will not resist evil. Who would prefer to die rather than physically hurt someone else? I can respect that to a certain degree, so long as it involves only themselves and the aggressor. Many saints exhibited such behaviour.

Well, of course we do not want to kill people indirectly by mass starvation, either. But I'm comfortable with depriving people of inessential things in preference to killing them.

If you are for economic sanctions then you are for their deprivation of essential things as well. North Koreans starve partly because of economic sanctions, yet we justify it because we want a peaceful change of regime in that country.

I don’t really see the distinction you make here between economic sanctions being used which can cause a longer and protracted pain on the people more than the elites or those in charge, and warfare. Both are going to cause misery and suffering along the way.

That doesn't actually happen, though. Even if there were a war where no civilian were harmed (which there hasn't been), it would still be wrong because the mass killing of combatants is also wrong. But given that generally the deaths of civilians are more numerous than the deaths of combatants, it becomes even harder to make an argument for war, than if it were a matter of simply letting those who are willing to fight risk their lives.

Combatants in our times willingly put themselves in a position in which they know they will kill or be killed. You want to act as if all wars are simply excuses to kill civilians on mass, that’s not true even if they are caught in the cross fire and see no reason to believe all wars involve the death of more civilians than combatants. Even if that were the case, we still have the problem of conflict and you are suggesting that the aggressor and their men are of equal value to the defender?

This is where you continue to lose me in your equivalence of these issues. Are the Poles really as guilty as the Germans or Russians for mounting a defence of their country in WW2?

Yes, there's a difference. Without an aggressor there would be no war, and the aggressor might be held more culpable. But the defender has choices, and chooses to resist violently, also.

How is the aggressor going to be held accountable when the defender will always lose in your worldview? How were the Germans held to account? Through the deaths of millions of lives. At this point you, in order to remain consistent, must say that the deaths of millions of lives between the allies and the axis were not worth the cost. At which point you then allow Hitler to go ahead with his plan to wipe out the Polish and Slavic peoples whose land he occupied in order to give the Germans a proper lebensraum.

As to the choice of the defender, what is the choice that you consider appropriate? Surrender and be subject to your enemies or leave (if they let you).

Are you maintaining that in all wars in history there is a complete equivalence at all times between both sides?

Only in a binary system where war/no war are seen as the only possible responses to the aggressor. But we don't live in a binary system. But yes, I agree there can be no just cause for war.

We do live in a binary system because there will always be war and the rumours of war. Any alternative you have provided thus far is ineffective, for addressing justice or maintaining human flourishing (the latter of which I think you care more about).

If you think there is no just cause for a defensive war then we are going to be able to reconcile. Too many examples have been brought up and you think the people in those scenarios are all committing a sin in retaliating to an aggressor.

This misrepresentation of my position is becoming tiresome, and - since I have dispelled it several times now - is starting to feel willfully dishonest on your part.

In a binary choice, where it is leave or kill, I am saying one should leave. I am also insisting that we do not live in a world of binary choices.

What else should the Armenians have done during their holocaust then? If not run away and if not fight back. I suppose becoming Muslim and adopting Turkish customs might have helped them, do you recommend that as a peaceful solution?

I didn't answer the question because you asked about Constantine's desires, and history does not allow me adequate knowledge of Constantine's desires to be able to answer.

You don’t need to know Constantine’s desires to judge him or what he did. By your logic he should have surrendered to Maxentius. Every Christian Emperor that might have arisen, if he was challenged by a rival should have surrendered.

I’m sure you consider the battle of the Milvian Bridge a mistake on Constantine’s part, despite it securing him the Empire and leading to an official toleration of Christianity.

I'm arguing for the presence of Christian politicians who use the power of their various offices for good. I think it's clear by now that I don't agree that warfare would fall into that category.

Part of the duty of some politicians is to think of military concerns. Be it budget or whether or not to use the military. Be that at home or in missions in other countries. Christian politicians cannot really exist or function in your view of things because if they are forced to make a decision about military concerns they cannot.

By definition, Christians were the aggressors in the Reconquista.

But let us take the question of "benefit." Suppose, for example, we were to agree that it's better to have money than not have money; poverty is not good. Your argument seems to me to be akin to the person who robs his neighbour, and then says, but I can justify my action because look at the benefit! I have money and that secures me a better future, and that is good! Sure, money and security is a good thing to have, but the means of acquiring it in this case were not right.

Similarly this argument about it being good for Christians to be socially dominant by means of war. Sure, it's nice to be socially dominant, it might even be objectively better for some residents of that area under Christianity than Islam, but the means of acquiring it (at the price of ten million lives) in this case were not right.

It's that simple in my mind. If it's not right to rob my neighbour for the "benefit" that accrues to me (or the group with which I identify), it's sure as heck not right to kill my neighbour for that reason.

I would agree they were aggressors, in seeking to conquer land that had once belonged to them and root out Islam from Iberia. The Reconquista is a specific example of a non-defensive war I consider justified and beneficial for Christianity at large.

But in order to make the argument that Christians were purely the aggressors ignores the fact that Muslims were the initial invaders and perpetrators of multiple attacks into Spain and Europe through that region. Lest I bring up Charles Martel and you tell me what he did was wrong in defending Francia. Lest I repeat the example of that slave girl you think should have just surrendered to her life as an Islamic sex slave (very compassionate).

Essentially, you are asking the Christians of France and Austurias (the last Chrisitan Kingdom in Iberia after the initial conquest) to live in peace with neighbours who constantly attack and constantly seek dominance themselves, as their religion teaches. You are telling the French, Navarese and Austurians not to resist an Islamic invasion. They may not, through conquest, seek to liberate the Christians under Islamic rule in the former Visigothic kingdom. No, those Christians are to be abandoned and their children, eventually, converted to Islam.

Hence I do not agree with this comparison of the Reconquista with a robbery. Did Muslims have the right to that land? Do you think the Islamic invasions were justified? How do you convince, via pacifism, the Muslims to peacefully vacate? You don’t. There is only one language they understood back then and it was war.

I do consider this a matter beyond your ideal of morality. It comes down to pragmatism. The Reconquista was not completely holy, not completely without fault on part of the attackers. Yet who invited 8 centuries of conflict in the first place? Not the Christians.

You simply can't predict alternative histories. That's pure speculation, and pretty meaningless.

By the time of the conquest of Granada that region was almost entirely Muslim. By that time also Christian communities in North Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East had been driven to extinction or were minority religions.

You can say we can’t hypothesize, but you cannot deny that it is a reasonable expectation for Christians under a heavily Islamic regime. Interestingly the Islam practiced in Iberia was more fundamentalist than other places in the Islamic world.

So it’s not meaningless despite your protestations.

At issue is the means by which one does that.

The means you suggest would historically have resulted in Christianity dying out with the breakup of the Roman Empire. The inability of Kings to defend their lands as Christians (No King would then want to convert to Christianity) and Christians basically being a class of permanent slaves.

 

[Paidiske]

Do you accept it as an acceptable Christian position to hold though? Or do you think it an errant position which must be amended least one jeopardize one’s Christianity? The latter would seem like your position but I would like clarification.

I can accept that there are those Christians who will not resist evil. Who would prefer to die rather than physically hurt someone else? I can respect that to a certain degree, so long as it involves only themselves and the aggressor. Many saints exhibited such behaviour.

I don't think it's "acceptable" to hold that killing is okay. But lots of Christians hold lots of unacceptable ideas, and God seems gracious in response to us. I'm not going to say it jeopardizes one's Christianity (and indeed I think it would be a flame under CF rules for me to say so).

But I think pacifism is the ideal, even when we fall short of it.

It's sort of an aside, but I was fascinated to learn in the last few days that having ever killed anyone automatically disqualifies one from the Orthodox priesthood. It seems to me that this speaks to some of the same thing I'm trying to say; we cannot take life and yet be instruments of the life-giving Lord. The difference perhaps is that I don't see that as a standard only for the clergy.

If you are for economic sanctions then you are for their deprivation of essential things as well.

No. I am not "for" causing loss of life indirectly, either. But I think, for example, of my father's memories of how South Africans struggled due to the unavailability of petrol during the apartheid-era sanctions, and that sort of inconvenience, I'd be perfectly fine with. (And I note that they contributed peacefully to the fall of apartheid).

Combatants in our times willingly put themselves in a position in which they know they will kill or be killed.

In Australia and New Zealand, maybe. In other places, this is not so true. When we're talking of seven-year-olds being "recruited" to fight in tribal conflicts, it's a whole different conversation.

You want to act as if all wars are simply excuses to kill civilians on mass,

Not exactly. But I think that warring groups simply don't care about the deaths of civilians, and treat that as an acceptable aspect of war.

and you are suggesting that the aggressor and their men are of equal value to the defender?

Value... yes. One human being is not of less value than another. The very suggestion is repugnant.

This is where you continue to lose me in your equivalence of these issues. Are the Poles really as guilty as the Germans or Russians for mounting a defence of their country in WW2?

The invasion was wrong. But faced with the invasion, I'd argue that armed defence was also wrong.

Fundamentally, I'm arguing that spiritually it does not matter who governs which bit of land. Nations come and go, empires rise and fall, borders move, governments change... it's all irrelevant to the Christian. To be willing to end a real, precious human life, for the abstraction of who rules what; and worse, to be willing to do that into the millions... it's madness. People are worth infinitely more than some claim for who gets to plant their flag where.

How is the aggressor going to be held accountable when the defender will always lose in your worldview?

I guess I'm arguing for a much more robust system of international accountability than we currently have, in which would-be aggressors can be more effectively contained than they have been in the past.

Are you maintaining that in all wars in history there is a complete equivalence at all times between both sides?

No, that's very clearly not at all what I have been saying.

We do live in a binary system because there will always be war and the rumours of war.

Well, if you believe peace-building is impossible such that you won't even try, then war probably is inevitable. But I feel like that quote - (was it Chesterton?) "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried" - applies here.

What else should the Armenians have done during their holocaust then?

It should never have been allowed to get to that point. The situation ought to have been addressed long before, with pressure brought to bear on Turkey from around the world.

That's the ideal.

You don’t need to know Constantine’s desires to judge him or what he did.

Well, I don't feel able to judge him based on what is available to me from historical accounts. You will have to be content that I am equally reticent to judge most people.

Part of the duty of some politicians is to think of military concerns. Be it budget or whether or not to use the military. Be that at home or in missions in other countries. Christian politicians cannot really exist or function in your view of things because if they are forced to make a decision about military concerns they cannot.

Perhaps a Christian might feel conscience-bound not to seek the Defence portfolio in cabinet. Perhaps they might feel able to take it and work to minimise conflict and maximise peace. Either might be reasonable approaches. But a Christian who seeks political power for the purpose of furthering military ambition; no, there is a fundamental conflict there.

Essentially, you are asking the Christians of France and Austurias (the last Chrisitan Kingdom in Iberia after the initial conquest) to live in peace with neighbours who constantly attack and constantly seek dominance themselves, as their religion teaches.

Well, I'm not, particularly (not least because we're talking centuries-old history). However, I believe that that is exactly what Christ asks of all of us; to live in peace, to seek to build and sustain peace, and to value each human being, as a witness to the love of God which is poured out for all.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

Hence I do not agree with this comparison of the Reconquista with a robbery.

I was making a more general point about your argument about the "benefit" of war. If it is not right for me to benefit myself by robbing my neighbour of his money, how can it be right for me to benefit myself by robbing him of his life? "Benefit" cannot be the overriding consideration in assessing the morality of an action, especially when it is one-sided.

Do you think the Islamic invasions were justified?

I think I've made it clear that I don't think any invasion is justified.

How do you convince, via pacifism, the Muslims to peacefully vacate? You don’t. There is only one language they understood back then and it was war.

Maybe they didn't need to vacate. Maybe - here's a radical thought - peaceful co-existence might have been possible.

I do consider this a matter beyond your ideal of morality. It comes down to pragmatism.

There might be times when pragmatism overrules idealism. But never to the tune of millions of lives. That's not pragmatism, that's overwhelming evil.

The means you suggest would historically have resulted in Christianity dying out with the breakup of the Roman Empire. The inability of Kings to defend their lands as Christians (No King would then want to convert to Christianity) and Christians basically being a class of permanent slaves.

It'd make an interesting novel, but it'd be a piece of speculative fiction, and would have no more weight than that. We simply cannot know what might have been.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I don't think it's "acceptable" to hold that killing is okay. But lots of Christians hold lots of unacceptable ideas, and God seems gracious in response to us. I'm not going to say it jeopardizes one's Christianity (and indeed I think it would be a flame under CF rules for me to say so).

Well even you consider killing justified under certain circumstances, but the issue isn’t killing in of itself but warfare and whether or not it is justified. Do you consider all Christians who participated in and benefitted from it to be guilty of some sort of sin? The Armenians who fought to defend their lives and families, were they sinning?

But I think pacifism is the ideal, even when we fall short of it.

It’s idealistic and ineffective. Mainly because it cannot handle extreme circumstances and always cedes to the aggressor their demands.

It's sort of an aside, but I was fascinated to learn in the last few days that having ever killed anyone automatically disqualifies one from the Orthodox priesthood. It seems to me that this speaks to some of the same thing I'm trying to say; we cannot take life and yet be instruments of the life-giving Lord. The difference perhaps is that I don't see that as a standard only for the clergy.

I’m unaware of that specific rule but it is unsurprising. This is because of the different roles of both the clergy and the laity. It isn’t a priest’s place to take up arms in defence of his Church, though the priest may bless the military man who is taking up arms to defend his Church. Since the Orthodox Church has long been part of states which used warfare, Rome, Russia and etc, it’s kind of impossible to derive a pacifist stance from my own tradition. Though nice try.

Again, many Saints and Clergy benefitted from the protection of armies and lawful authorities. That doesn’t render those authorities evil when it the handing out of justice they must take lives.

No. I am not "for" causing loss of life indirectly, either. But I think, for example, of my father's memories of how South Africans struggled due to the unavailability of petrol during the apartheid-era sanctions, and that sort of inconvenience, I'd be perfectly fine with. (And I note that they contributed peacefully to the fall of apartheid).

If you are for economic sanctions on entire nations then yes, you are for causing harm to others, just not in a direct and bloody way. For instance, if the whole world were to boycott China for the Uighurs sake, many of us would agree despite the massive problems this could cause internally within China. Many more people than just the Uighurs might die from lack of jobs, food and the like.

In Australia and New Zealand, maybe. In other places, this is not so true. When we're talking of seven-year-olds being "recruited" to fight in tribal conflicts, it's a whole different conversation.

So because many Turks were recruited to deliberately exterminate the Armenians, it’s wrong for those Armenians to fight back against those Turks? Interesting premise.

Not exactly. But I think that warring groups simply don't care about the deaths of civilians, and treat that as an acceptable aspect of war.

It depends on the country or faction involved. You cannot lump it all in the same basket.

Value... yes. One human being is not of less value than another. The very suggestion is repugnant.

I agree. Valuing the evildoer more than the victim does seem evil to me.

The invasion was wrong. But faced with the invasion, I'd argue that armed defence was also wrong.

Thus the aggressor always wins.

Fundamentally, I'm arguing that spiritually it does not matter who governs which bit of land. Nations come and go, empires rise and fall, borders move, governments change... it's all irrelevant to the Christian. To be willing to end a real, precious human life, for the abstraction of who rules what; and worse, to be willing to do that into the millions... it's madness. People are worth infinitely more than some claim for who gets to plant their flag where.

Part of the Polish struggle was spiritual. They were a Catholic nation surrounded by peoples who have been historically hostile to them or dominated them. Having achieved their independence (through WW1), they are then told by people like you that in order to preserve life they must not fight against the Germans. They had no right to defend their lives in Hitler’s effort to increase space for the German people to propagate on land they did not own?

Very well. So the Poles die in your worldview, because not even the attack on the Poles justifies the allies declaration of war on Germany. (For the record I think the declaration of war on Germany at that point was reckless and stupid. They should have waited till Hitler inevitably went to war with eh Soviet union and crush both regimes when they were at their weakest.)

I guess I'm arguing for a much more robust system of international accountability than we currently have, in which would-be aggressors can be more effectively contained than they have been in the past.

Contained how? You’ve forbidden fighting back. It would take only one state with the will to fight and dominate everyone else. There can be no containing any force without the threat of military violence.

Well, if you believe peace-building is impossible such that you won't even try, then war probably is inevitable. But I feel like that quote - (was it Chesterton?) "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried" - applies here.

Peace building is good to attempt. I’m not against it. I am however not against the use of arms if it is necessary. If the Armenians want to defend their lives. If the Greeks want to defend their lives. They are not sinning in doing so.

It should never have been allowed to get to that point. The situation ought to have been addressed long before, with pressure brought to bear on Turkey from around the world.

That's the ideal.

What pressure and from who? Many commentators frowned upon the Ottomans. The Armenian Patriarch begged for the lives of his people to an indifferent Sultan or Attaturk (I do not recall the specific details). How would it be enforced when Germany, a leading superpower is allied with the Ottomans for strategic reasons? This is what I mean when I say your ideas are idealistic. They are rooted in failing to understand just how bloodthirsty humanity can be.

When you forbid even the most desperate option from even being considered you give effective licence for people to carry out their evil designs.

Perhaps a Christian might feel conscience-bound not to seek the Defence portfolio in cabinet. Perhaps they might feel able to take it and work to minimise conflict and maximise peace. Either might be reasonable approaches. But a Christian who seeks political power for the purpose of furthering military ambition; no, there is a fundamental conflict there.

Not what I’m arguing. What I am saying is that if a Christian wants to reach the highest echelons of power they should not, because that involves commanding or dealing with a nation’s military. Effectively you want to bar Christians from the highest seats of political power. A very secular thing to do, though it is unwise, like most of the suggestions you’ve made. A Christian ruler can use a military effectively and morally, like Alfred the Great did or Monarchs of Spain did.

Well, I'm not, particularly (not least because we're talking centuries-old history). However, I believe that that is exactly what Christ asks of all of us; to live in peace, to seek to build and sustain peace, and to value each human being, as a witness to the love of God which is poured out for all.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

Peace would involve here submitting to Islamic rule. Something I do not think anyone should tolerate. The problem here with you seeking peace at all costs is that it is an evil peace, it allows evil to flourish.

I was making a more general point about your argument about the "benefit" of war. If it is not right for me to benefit myself by robbing my neighbour of his money, how can it be right for me to benefit myself by robbing him of his life? "Benefit" cannot be the overriding consideration in assessing the morality of an action, especially when it is one-sided.

If only the Muslims shared this viewpoint the Reconquista would not have been necessary.

There might be times when pragmatism overrules idealism. But never to the tune of millions of lives. That's not pragmatism, that's overwhelming evil.

It is not overwhelming evil to liberate your fellow Christians from their second class citizenship under Islamic law. It is evil to ignore them and be death to their concerns. To tell a Greek under the Ottomans that it’s better to live in peace with the Ottomans and they take your son, than to incur their wrath.

The passive acceptance of evil is all you offer and it is a paltry thing.

It'd make an interesting novel, but it'd be a piece of speculative fiction, and would have no more weight than that. We simply cannot know what might have been.

I would say it’s a pretty good guess. Most of Europe converted to Christianity through the conversion of Kings to the faith. What Pagan King is going to convert to a religion which tells them an enemy tribe can come and take everything they want and the Christian King cannot fight back? How do Christians resist the Islamic invasions of Europe in your view? They don’t, they accept Islamic rule and Dhimmitude. Viking raiders can take any amount of Christian land they want and not be stopped.

History is full of aggressors and don’t get me wrong, many Christian Rulers were aggressors. But your solution would have outright ended the Church’s existence, especially if Pagan Romans launched a serious persecution.

If you have a counter scenario that is more reasonable, present it. Otherwise you’re simply dismissing something out of historical ignorance.

 

[Paidiske]

Well even you consider killing justified under certain circumstances, but the issue isn’t killing in of itself but warfare and whether or not it is justified. Do you consider all Christians who participated in and benefitted from it to be guilty of some sort of sin? The Armenians who fought to defend their lives and families, were they sinning?

I consider anyone who participates in warfare to be sinning, yes. Are those who benefitted from it also sinning; now that is an interesting question. Do we go in for corporate guilt? I think an argument could be made, but it would need to be based on more than just whether someone benefitted, since one might benefit in ways for which one is not morally culpable.

It’s idealistic and ineffective. Mainly because it cannot handle extreme circumstances and always cedes to the aggressor their demands.

That's your take on it. I disagree.

I’m unaware of that specific rule but it is unsurprising. This is because of the different roles of both the clergy and the laity.

You're unaware of it, but then assume you can explain the rationale for it without familiarising yourself with the history?

Since the Orthodox Church has long been part of states which used warfare, Rome, Russia and etc, it’s kind of impossible to derive a pacifist stance from my own tradition. Though nice try.

I am aware that Orthodoxy is not pacifist, but I think some of its ancient traditions preserve a witness to the high value of life for which I am arguing.

If you are for economic sanctions on entire nations then yes, you are for causing harm to others, just not in a direct and bloody way. For instance, if the whole world were to boycott China for the Uighurs sake, many of us would agree despite the massive problems this could cause internally within China. Many more people than just the Uighurs might die from lack of jobs, food and the like.

If sanctions end up causing death, they go far beyond the measure for which I am arguing.

So because many Turks were recruited to deliberately exterminate the Armenians, it’s wrong for those Armenians to fight back against those Turks? Interesting premise.

I've been arguing all through this thread that killing is to be avoided if at all possible.

It depends on the country or faction involved. You cannot lump it all in the same basket.

Some are more aware of the optics, shall we say, than others, especially those where voting citizens might expect accountability. But on the whole, those who engage in warfare demonstrate a complete contempt for life, and civilian life is of small account.

I agree.

If we value all lives equally, then we cannot justify killing based on the argument that someone's actions have earned them that death.

They had no right to defend their lives in Hitler’s effort to increase space for the German people to propagate on land they did not own?

What good did it do? About 95,000 people died in that brief fight (the vast majority of them Poles), and Poland still lost. Why should we say it was worth those 95,000 people dying? For what, a few more weeks of the Polish flag waving somewhere?

Contained how? You’ve forbidden fighting back. It would take only one state with the will to fight and dominate everyone else. There can be no containing any force without the threat of military violence.

How about a situation where military aggression would mean economic suicide? Or where the world simply refuses the means to arm oneself? Where the military-industrial complex basically does not exist to serve the appetite for weaponry, and where the aggressor has no access to the means of mass killing? Where the raw materials for arms production are denied to the would-be aggressor? Just for a start.

Yeah, it's a very different world the one we live in. It would need to be, because our world basically shrugs and accepts war - and the economic exploitation of war - as normal and right, but that need not be so.

Not what I’m arguing. What I am saying is that if a Christian wants to reach the highest echelons of power they should not, because that involves commanding or dealing with a nation’s military. Effectively you want to bar Christians from the highest seats of political power. A very secular thing to do, though it is unwise, like most of the suggestions you’ve made. A Christian ruler can use a military effectively and morally, like Alfred the Great did or Monarchs of Spain did.

I'm not necessarily arguing that. If a Christian aspires to and attains a position that means commanding or dealing with the military, and then uses all his or her power in that position to minimise the use of that military, to minimise the possibility of warfare and death, then an argument could be made for them working within a compromised and flawed system.

But a Christian who reaches such a position and then does not use their power to minimise death... that's a whole different thing.

Peace would involve here submitting to Islamic rule. Something I do not think anyone should tolerate.

I don't agree. Then again, I recently applied for a ministry position in a Muslim country (Covid put that on the backburner indefinitely), so I don't particularly have a problem with the fact of the existence or dominance of Islam in some places.

The idea that no one should "tolerate" Islamic rule raises some very disturbing implications for largely Muslim areas of the world today. I certainly could not support the violent disruption of those nations, especially those who currently enjoy relative peace.

The problem here with you seeking peace at all costs is that it is an evil peace, it allows evil to flourish.

Violence and death are not the answer to evil. They are evil!

The passive acceptance of evil is all you offer

If that is what you take from my arguments, you have completely misunderstood my point. But since I have restated it many times, I am not sure what more I can say to make it any clearer.

Otherwise you’re simply dismissing something out of historical ignorance.

Oh come on. You invent an alternative history, and then when I point out that it's highly speculative, call me ignorant for pointing out that we have no real capacity to have known what might have been. If you're just going to descend to insults, is there any real point to the discussion?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I consider anyone who participates in warfare to be sinning, yes. Are those who benefitted from it also sinning; now that is an interesting question. Do we go in for corporate guilt? I think an argument could be made, but it would need to be based on more than just whether someone benefitted, since one might benefit in ways for which one is not morally culpable.

I would say we did benefit from it, specifically in the Anglosphere. Since you consider the consorting of Christianity with the sword to be sinning, I wonder how it is you dismiss my concern to reconcile ourselves with history. Because if not for that violence and death I maintain Christianity would not have survived. You’re free to believe in alternatives but can you point to me a single religion which flourished while being utterly pacifistic, that never resorted to the sword in some form?

I don’t know of one.

You're unaware of it, but then assume you can explain the rationale for it without familiarising yourself with the history?

Yes since I know Orthodox history, at least more than you do, I reckon. The Church was not above allying with secular powers who did things they would not do. The Church even today doesn’t encourage unilateral disarmament in any Orthodox country. I’ve even seen pictures of Orthodox priests in Russia blessing Russian military equipment.

Your argument is akin to comparing Bishops to your average laity. Bishops aren’t married in the Orthodox Church. Yet this doesn’t mean we consider marriage immoral, only that it holds a higher place. In that same respect being peaceful does have a higher place. It does not render the soldier necessarily guilty of sin if he takes a life in the course of his duties. If that were the case the Orthodox Church is guilty for defending itself many times over against a lot of people. Muslims, Catholics, Atheists.

I am aware that Orthodoxy is not pacifist, but I think some of its ancient traditions preserve a witness to the high value of life for which I am arguing.

Something being of higher value doesn’t mean the lesser value is evil or sinful. Only that it is an aspiration. That aspiration keeps one in check and prevents or allows us to recognize when we’ve gone too far.

If sanctions end up causing death, they go far beyond the measure for which I am arguing.

Then what other method do you propose? Economic sanctions only seem to punish the poor and those out of power while the rich and elite continue to eat and use resources regular people don’t have. See North Korea for an example.

I've been arguing all through this thread that killing is to be avoided if at all possible.

You’ve been arguing that is always evil to kill in combat. Regardless of circumstances. Not that we should avoid war. Of course war should be avoided but sometimes it cannot.

Some are more aware of the optics, shall we say, than others, especially those where voting citizens might expect accountability. But on the whole, those who engage in warfare demonstrate a complete contempt for life, and civilian life is of small account.

This is generally a true statement.

If we value all lives equally, then we cannot justify killing based on the argument that someone's actions have earned them that death.

That’s the thing then. I value the Armenians lives who died more than the Turks who killed them. You want to defend the lives of the Turks who perpetuated the Genocide? You can but it seems utterly incorrigible.

What good did it do? About 95,000 people died in that brief fight (the vast majority of them Poles), and Poland still lost. Why should we say it was worth those 95,000 people dying? For what, a few more weeks of the Polish flag waving somewhere?

To reduce a people’s fight for their freedom and lives as an exercise in flag waving is a gross misunderstanding of why the Poles fought in the first place. Perhaps they considered it worth the chance, considering that by the end of war 6 million Poles died.

Now I will defend the right of the Poles to self-determine as a people. To not have their land invaded for Germans to colonize and to defend their character as a generally Catholic people.

You’re right to say their effort was doomed. But do you think if Poland had willingly surrendered Hitler would have spared those soldiers? Or that perhaps they would simply be first?

How about a situation where military aggression would mean economic suicide? Or where the world simply refuses the means to arm oneself? Where the military-industrial complex basically does not exist to serve the appetite for weaponry, and where the aggressor has no access to the means of mass killing? Where the raw materials for arms production are denied to the would-be aggressor? Just for a start.

Yeah, it's a very different world the one we live in. It would need to be, because our world basically shrugs and accepts war - and the economic exploitation of war - as normal and right, but that need not be so.

So you’re back to arguing that the economy should be targeted. Who does this hurt? It hurts the common people who don’t have control of policy so how is this substantially different?

How are you going to stop the aggressing state from simply capturing more land and making up for its loss in trade revenue? Remember, you’ve forbidden fighting back.

I agree with you about the exploitation of war in the 20th century (No recent American Project has done the world any good), but you don’t solve the problem by denying countries their right to even defend themselves. You only exacerbate it and allow those who crave power to rise to the top instead of principled people who will not throw their countries recklessly into endless conflicts.

I'm not necessarily arguing that. If a Christian aspires to and attains a position that means commanding or dealing with the military, and then uses all his or her power in that position to minimise the use of that military, to minimise the possibility of warfare and death, then an argument could be made for them working within a compromised and flawed system.

But a Christian who reaches such a position and then does not use their power to minimise death... that's a whole different thing.

I suppose you would applaud Armenia for not building up it’s Military enough to combat the Azerbaijanis. When a state stops competing with other states and looks weak that can only invite a war if the aggressor thinks their opponent is weak.

But since you’ve argued that it’s a sin to kill people, no Christian in your vision for Christianity can be called to lead a country because they should be convicted by their conscience that the use of a military is evil.

I don't agree. Then again, I recently applied for a ministry position in a Muslim country (Covid put that on the backburner indefinitely), so I don't particularly have a problem with the fact of the existence or dominance of Islam in some places.

The idea that no one should "tolerate" Islamic rule raises some very disturbing implications for largely Muslim areas of the world today. I certainly could not support the violent disruption of those nations, especially those who currently enjoy relative peace.

Islamic nations today should be left alone. Yet I’ve been talking of a specific historical conflict between explicitly Christian states and explicitly Muslim ones.

Your solution historically is nonsense. Can you point to me one state in history, where when Christians submitted to Islamic rule they peacefully got their independence or were able to determine for themselves what to do as a country?

Just one.

Violence and death are not the answer to evil. They are evil!

They are evil when not properly used. Death is used by the state to keep people in order and is a punishment it deals out. Paul accepted this and justified the Romans have that authority and you should to. Violence if it has a right casus belli is also reasonable. You’ve already allowed the state to kill mass murderers, the only thing you have to do is allow an individual to kill a mass murderer if they are being threatened.

If that is what you take from my arguments, you have completely misunderstood my point. But since I have restated it many times, I am not sure what more I can say to make it any clearer.

- Running away.

- Submitting.

- Economic sanctions.

These are your only solutions, the latter can even result in harm and inhibit human flourishing. Yet you’re okay with that.

Oh come on. You invent an alternative history, and then when I point out that it's highly speculative, call me ignorant for pointing out that we have no real capacity to have known what might have been. If you're just going to descend to insults, is there any real point to the discussion?

Can you provide a plausible historical simulation wherein your Christianity is able to weather 2000 years of threats and violence? You’ve only attempted once with the example of Rome, which I explained is a very different context when compared to Islam.

Furthermore you have to ignore how Christianity came to dominate Europe. It was through the conversion of Kingdoms. People converting along with their King. Can you show me any King in history who wasn’t regarded as a bad King, who just let his lands be captured by hostile foreign forces?


I don’t mean to insult you, but I don’t think you’ve considered the matter historically hence why you dismissed my earlier concern of reconciling us to Christian past. As an Anglican who claims an Apostolic lineage, to be the Church started since the Apostles in a continuity with that same Church, this is not an aspect of Christian history that we can flippantly recuse ourselves from.

Christianity has long since tied itself and given legitimacy to the state, its ability to war and its ability to execute punishment. If what you’re saying is true, the Church has been guilty of a horrendous series of sins and has been the accomplice of regimes which must only be called abominations for the ‘evil’ they’ve done in condoning or allowing the death of so many people.

If you have a better take on the history, present it. Show me how a pacifist Christianity becomes a global ideology like Christianity is today without that background.

 

[Paidiske]

You’ve been arguing that is always evil to kill in combat. Regardless of circumstances. Not that we should avoid war.

That killing is evil entails that we should avoid war.

That’s the thing then. I value the Armenians lives who died more than the Turks who killed them. You want to defend the lives of the Turks who perpetuated the Genocide? You can but it seems utterly incorrigible.

This is not something I can understand from a Christian. If some lives are worth less, or some people deserve to die, that is the sort of attitude that fuels killing, violence and warfare. The narrative that some are "less" as human beings is what is used to justify killing. This is what we should stand against.

But since you’ve argued that it’s a sin to kill people,

... a fairly mainstream Christian position. We're just arguing about whether doing it at huge volumes in the name of an ideology or state can somehow justify it.

no Christian in your vision for Christianity can be called to lead a country because they should be convicted by their conscience that the use of a military is evil.

I might hope that Christians would be called to lead a country because they should be convicted by their conscience that the use of a military is evil... and thus avoid it.

Islamic nations today should be left alone. Yet I’ve been talking of a specific historical conflict between explicitly Christian states and explicitly Muslim ones.

If it was justifiable then, why is it not justifiable now?

Your solution historically is nonsense. Can you point to me one state in history, where when Christians submitted to Islamic rule they peacefully got their independence or were able to determine for themselves what to do as a country?

Just one.

One could make a case for Cyprus, actually, although that did involve the sort of international pressure I've been arguing for. (And the peace has been sporadic, but at the moment membership of the EU seems to be helping).

You’ve already allowed the state to kill mass murderers, the only thing you have to do is allow an individual to kill a mass murderer if they are being threatened.

I have allowed the state to kill in order to interrupt killing. I have specified that if at all possible the state ought to resort to something short of killing.

Can you provide a plausible historical simulation wherein your Christianity is able to weather 2000 years of threats and violence?

I refuse to engage in pointless speculative fiction. Nor do I need to, because this is not an argument about history, it's an argument about morality. And history is not the criterion for whether or not something is moral.

I don’t mean to insult you, but I don’t think you’ve considered the matter historically hence why you dismissed my earlier concern of reconciling us to Christian past.

It's not that I haven't considered the matter historically, it's just that I think the history's irrelevant to this question.

As an Anglican who claims an Apostolic lineage, to be the Church started since the Apostles in a continuity with that same Church, this is not an aspect of Christian history that we can flippantly recuse ourselves from.

As an Anglican I can say that the history of Establishment (in England at least) provides us with some problematic history. I don't have to say we've been right or what we've done has been good, and can quite comfortably critique it. It probably helps that where I live, we're not Established (not a state church) and don't have that relationship to navigate, and that seems to me to be healthier for the church.

Christianity has long since tied itself and given legitimacy to the state, its ability to war and its ability to execute punishment. If what you’re saying is true, the Church has been guilty of a horrendous series of sins and has been the accomplice of regimes which must only be called abominations for the ‘evil’ they’ve done in condoning or allowing the death of so many people.

Yes, exactly. Claiming "God with us" while killing, or blessing instruments of death on behalf of the state is profound blasphemy, and we have been guilty of us.

Show me how a pacifist Christianity becomes a global ideology like Christianity is today without that background.

Irrelevant. We are not called to seek to establish a global ideology. We are called to love our neighbours, and we cannot do that while killing them.