Who Safeguard’s The Common Weal? Just War Arguments Poem by Daniel Partlow

(Five excellent and challenging issues for this doctrine of peace)

1) What about the Tyrants?
What about the wars Hitler, Genghis, and the Sultans of Islam were waging?
Are we not to protect our children from the tyrant’s raging?

Pantheist Rome became Christian not by the sword.
What reason exists that this mightn’t have happened to the Golden Horde?

Evil Hitler rose to power in a putatively Christian land.
But he would have been emasculated without the use of the Christian soldiers’ hand.

Why is it so hard to believe that God would show up and be our shield?
If we demonstrate our trust in Him, our covenant then is sealed.

Why does having faith on this magnitude seem almost absurd?
Are we so grounded in the violent ways of the world that we still haven’t heard?

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, Chesterton once replied
But it has been found difficult and still goes untried.

Even if the Gentile enemies carried the battle on the field, it cannot be shown
That the Christian’s witness to the Seljuk or Moor, would not have caused them to atone.

What if Evangelists were sent to Islam instead of the Templars of Payn
Glorifying the message of Christ, instead of the legacies of Solomon and Cain.

What a contrast between Bernard and the earlier words of Martin.
From ‘I’m a soldier of Christ and must not fight’ pacifism to the ‘Malecide for Christ! ’ doctrine-Spartan.

Martin, the patron of the soldier, showed that a pacifist is no coward
Offering to lead his regiment unarmed (but apparently not un-empowered)

In fact the Church forbade fighting and even bearing arms until the time of Augustine.
But the sword ‘To kill a pagan is to win glory to Christ’ is what Bernard put his trust in.

But God rejected the concept ‘Jus ad Bellum’ in His declaration ‘vengeance is mine’.
The ‘Jus in Bello’ of Christ is ‘turn the other cheek’, and ‘love your enemy, ’ not to malign.

2) What about Old Testament Wars?
What about the Goliath and the Philistines who wanted to bring Israel to its knees?
Didn’t God tell Joshua, David, and Saul to destroy its enemies?

What if the Israelites had acted as the brave and obedient Caleb?
Who trusted that with God, entering promised Canaan would be a lay-up.

Would then there have been the desert wandering and succession of battles,
In which they lost many men, women, children, and chattels?

Israel disobeyed God over and over again.
And war was the fruit of the disobedient action of their men.

But when they acted righteously and obeyed the law of God.
Israel was left in peace, nary an enemy boot there trod.

But there are very few times when, via the Office of the Prophet, violence was ordained.
And that is the key. What conflict today could be similarly justified or explained.

3) Isn’t the individual to submit to civil authority?
The individual is not in a position to make a declaration of war
And aren’t they to obey whatever is their duly assigned chore.

Augustine argues that only a Sovereign may make such declarations
All his subjects are simply following orders according to their stations.

But this relies on the supposition that an individual is absolved of the guilt
Of anything that is done that a superior officer willed.

No matter how blasphemous, tortuous, fraudulent, inhumane, or heinous,
If it is done for the state, it’s okay… Or is this rather like the two-faced Janus?

For it causes all good and holy to submit to any human wisdom and intent.
Why would the redeemed have anything to do with a tyrant so hell-bent.

4) War is proscribed for priests, but not other Christians.
Aquinas has argued that although just war is meritorious for soldier of the barracks,
And what is good in general, is good for all Christian clerics,

That holy clerical works and warlike pursuits are altogether incongruent.
But if that is so, then why expect any Christian to act so obstruent.

‘It is rendered unlawful for priests, because they are deputed to works better still.
Now here is where this argument turns into a bitter Roman pill.

‘Thus marriage may be good; yet it becomes reprehensible for the clergy
Because they are bound to a yet greater good (like monastic zymurgy?)

This argument seems more suited for his contemporary Lysanders.
But what is good for the (St. Martin-esque) goose, is good for the laity ganders.

So accept this argument, but apply it to all of Christianity:
‘Because to wit, warlike pursuits are full of unrest (and mortal insanity.)

So that they hinder the mind from the contemplation of the divine…’
Agreed, but why is only the priest allowed to study and opine?

‘The praise of God and prayers for the people: the duties of a priest’
Prayer, praise, and worship are the duty of all followers of Christ.

‘Wherefore just as commercial enterprises are for priests, forbidden fruits
Because they unsettle the mind too much, so too are warlike pursuits’

‘Remember me as often as you eat this bread, and drink this chalice
Wherefore it is unbecoming for them to slay, shed blood, (or participate in malice.)

It is more fitting that they should be ready to shed their own blood
So as to imitate in deed what they portray in their ministry as good.

Thus it has been decreed that those who shed blood…become ‘irregular’ (illegit) .
Now no one who has a certain duty, can lawfully do that which renders him unfit.

Wherefore it is altogether unlawful for clerics to use the sword
Because war is directed to the shedding of blood… and such is untoward.’

5) Doesn’t some scripture explicitly ordain certain uses of the sword?
Aren’t such things implied by the words of the Lord?

5a) He that hath no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one. (Luke 22: 36-37)
When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing?
And they (recalled? or said sheepishly?) : ‘Nothing’.

“But now go on, he that has a purse or scrip, take it if you must! ”
(Is Christ in the middle of rebuking his disciples for their fearful lack of trust?)

(Or is He reminding them that what is to follow is not for their protection or posterity
But only for the purpose of filling a specific prophecy?)

“And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, go and buy one.
Because I tell you that what was written must be fulfilled in Me (the Son) .

“And he (Christ) was numbered with the transgressors;
So that which refers to Me has its fulfillment…' There is no call to be aggressors.

5b) How many swords do you have? Two. Enough! (Luke 22: 38)
Enough, enough is the pivotal word.
But does it mean ‘sufficient’, or ‘I can’t believe what I just heard? ’

If it means ‘Two swords to defend twelve, that’s enough’
It does not follow; in fact it seems to deny the other ten’s need for such stuff.

Perhaps it implies the sword is a deterrent (although it’s more like the ox’s thill)
But this is still a far cry from ordaining the use of it to kill.

And if He truly meant, “it is enough to defend us from being persecuted.”
Then how was it that Christ and many apostles were executed?

Is it not rather an interjection of amazement or frustration?
‘Enough! Haven’t you been listening to the lessons I’ve given to this nation? ’

Or does it simply mean “It is enough for the purpose of fulfilling what Isaiah wrote”
For Peter was rebuked for using it, when the soldiers ear he smote.

Then Jesus said to him, “Put that sword away in its place!
For all they that take the sword, such demise you will someday face.”

This sequence of statements ends with a call to put away the implement of death.
For they exist only to kill and the one who wields it has breathed his final breath.

None of these interpretations are a call to carnal blades.
He is Isaiah’s Prince of Peace, not one who calls for bloody Jihad or crusades.

5c) Think not that I came to send peace on earth, but a sword… (Mt 10: 34)
As you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and the brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his son

The children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be executed.
You’ll be hated by all men for my sake, but the sentence of he that endures shall be commuted.

But when they persecute you in this city, flee to the next one
Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the return of the Son

But whoever denies me before men, him will I also deny before my Father.
Think not that I came to send peace; I came not to send peace, but a sword rather.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, to make the child bold
The daughter against her mother, a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

He that loves father or mother, son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me.

The sword which He speak of here, is the sword of truth,
Which will create turmoil for the stubborn parent who rejects the zeal of their youth.

But in no way is the passage an authorization to wield the carnal blade.
For Jesus does not contradict the other peaceful statements that He’s made.

5d) Harm No One, Be Content with Your Pay (Luke 3: 14)
And the soldiers asked of him, saying, and what shall we do?
Do violence to none, nor accuse any falsely; and be content the wages given you.

Now despite the clear, anti-violence theme of this passage,
Some have read into this a license for ‘soldiering’ message.

For if one is allowed to accept wages for this profession
Isn’t all that soldiering entails implied in this confession?

But being a soldier is not always a choice when the draft-board selects.
It is only a cellular act of violence, which an individual commits or rejects.

Society may press me into a uniform and assign me to a squad,
But none can force me to do that which is prohibited by God.

To extend Solzhenitsyn’s brilliant allegory, the thin line between good and evil, the tapering acumen.
May run through parties, states, and ideologies but it only becomes real, it only comes to a point, in the heart and deed of every human.

5e) The Sword is not Worn In Vain (Romans 13: 3-4)
For magistrates are to be feared not by the righteous but by evil men.
You desire to have no reason to fear your ruler, is this not thy yen?

Well, do the thing that is right, and he will commend you as he should.
For he is the minister of God to thee for good.

But if you do evil, be afraid; for he bears not the sword in vain:
He is the minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon the inane.

At face value, this is perhaps the clearest contradiction of “Vengeance is Mine”
But scripture does not contradict, and studied more closely it is perfectly in line.

When Paul wrote, the government in no way dedicated itself to Yahweh.
There was no intent to be righteous in the eyes of God in any such way.

And yet the Lord used it as an instrument of His wrath, just as He had done
By using Assyrians, Babylonians, Philistines, and Egyptians as His weapon.

But that does not mean that the implements of His rebuke were ‘justified’
In and of themselves; All of them were cursed for their deeds and their pride.

This passage is a warning to Christians that God might use the ‘Duke’
Or other civil authorities as an implement of His rebuke.

It does not explicitly permit the Christians to act with ferocity
When they come into positions of civil authority.