Should Britain supply Ukraine with more weapons? A Christian pacifist perspective
Short paper submitted from a Christian pacifist perspective to the Church of England's Faith & Order Commission.
Question: how Christians should respond to the prevailing international mood of rearmament, and specifically what our stance should be to the call to supply Ukraine with more weapons?
“Pacifists always bear the burden of proof. They do so
because, as attractive as nonviolence may be, most assume that pacifism just
will not work. You may want to keep a few pacifists around for reminding those
burdened with running the world that what they sometimes have to do is a lesser
evil, but pacifism simply cannot and should not be, even for Christians, a
normative stance.” Thus says theologian Stanley Hauerwas regarding the pacifist
perspective. Yet pacifism is not a singular concept, and it is one often
misunderstood. From a specifically Christian perspective it is important to
distinguish between two particular forms: liberal and what I will call
Christological.
Aligning with Kant’s categorical imperative, liberal pacifism
suggests that ethics should be applicable to anyone of goodwill.
Particularities like faith can be stripped back, revealing a more fundamental
nature founded in reason which can be appealed to and from which people can be
held accountable – what philosophers call ‘foundationalism.’ Liberal pacifism
therefore suggests that violence in any form should be forbidden – for the
follower of Jesus and the non-Christian statesperson alike.
Christological pacifism, on the other hand assumes that
Christian ethics is primarily for Christians. When Jesus commanded that
we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt 5.44) he was not
addressing anyone of goodwill, but specifically those who would respond to his
call to follow him. Christological pacifists attempt to take Jesus’ at his word
along with the witness of the New Testament writers as they wrestled with the
scriptures they had (what Christians call the Old Testament) in light of God’s
revelation in Jesus Christ. Attempts have been made to suggest that Jesus and
the early church might condone some level of violence by referencing silence in
the face of faithful Roman centurions for example (Matt 8.5-13, Mark 15.39,
Acts 10.1-11.18); but as Richard Hays shows, not only are these arguments from
silence but they are included by gospel writers for alternative purposes: the
importance of faith and the inclusion of Gentiles.[1]
Romans 13.1-7 seems to suggest the validity of the use of the sword to
challenge evil, but this is actually a case in point regarding the
differentiation of roles from those who follow Jesus and those who do not: in
Romans 12 Paul commands Christians to ‘bless those who persecute you’ (v.12)
and not to ‘repay anyone evil for evil’ (v.17); he then proceeds to tell the
Christians of Rome what the role of the state is, namely to restrain evil, with
no suggestion that this will be the Christians’ task.
This understanding inevitably conflicts with conceptions of
the state that have been dominant in most Christian traditions where it is
assumed that the Christian must be socially responsible and conduct ethics from
the perspective of the national policy maker. For Luther, for instance, Jesus’
commands might be applicable when only one’s own welfare is at stake, but when
it comes to loving one’s neighbour in public one can justify the use of lethal
violence. In certain strands of Roman Catholicism, some saints may have a
higher calling to follow Jesus’ specific commandments, but for the laity again
another set of rules apply. In all such cases the call to love one’s neighbour
cannot include the call to love one’s enemy as it is simply too impractical.
The problem with this is that Jesus does not provide the content of an ethical
framework for loving one’s enemy which involves killing him/her, so the
foundation for such an ethic is found elsewhere: usually certain places in the
Old Testament or some conception of natural law. Either way, Jesus is not the
foundation for the Christian’s public action and witness.
If it is accepted that followers of Jesus should not use lethal
violence but that Christian ethics is only or primarily for Christians, does
this suggest that God only cares about the internal life of the church and that
Christians cannot say anything to a world external to the church? I do not
believe so. Scripture shows how God not only created but cares for those not directly
covenanted as His people. The primary response of God against evil in the world
is the raising up of a people to witness to the true God and his ways – both
Israel in the Old Testament and reconciled Jews and Gentiles in the New are
called to a new pattern of life, but even when they fail, being able to name
sin properly is part of this witness. God’s care goes beyond this witness,
however, in the raising up of nations and leaders who will be used by God even
if they do not acknowledge Him. This, I would argue, is the function of the
state in Romans 13.1-7, 1 Tim. 2.2-4. Christological pacifism will resist any
generalised theory of the state where Jesus’ concrete commands are reduced to
values which can be applied to make statecraft a few degrees more loving of
peaceful for instance. Yet God will use political leaders, even in their
unbelief and unwillingness to submit to Jesus’ ways, to ensure that society
does not descend into chaos. This also does not preclude Christological
pacifists from many forms of public service and contribution to the common
good, where the demands of a role do not conflict with Jesus’ commands. When,
however, a nation asks the Christological pacifist to take up arms to defend
her homeland, she will decline, and in her witness will not cast judgment on
her non-believing neighbour who does so, but discern the Spirit’s work in
maintaining order in wider society through limited force.
For many, especially in the West, seeped as it is in
foundationalist assumptions, this will simply come across as arrogance and
double standards: why should others do Christians’ dirty work of keeping the
peace? Responding by alluding to differing polities and their functions in
God’s salvific plan will have limited effect if spoken from a place of power
and privilege as the church is often perceived to have. Dorothy Day often
received this criticism to her pacifism in the Spanish Civil War and WW2 and
understood the importance of social location of the pacifist: ‘This is a charge
always leveled [sic] against pacifists. We are supposed to be afraid of the
suffering, the hardships of war. But let those who talk of softness, of
sentimentality, come to live with us in the cold, unheated houses in the slums.
Let them come to live with the criminal, the unbalanced, the drunken, the
degraded, the pervert… Let them live with rats, with vermin, with bedbugs,
roaches, lice… Then, when they have lived with these comrades, with these
sights and sounds, let our critics talk of sentimentality. “Love in practice is
a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”’[2]
How might Christological pacifism be applied to the war in
Ukraine? The short answer must be: very carefully and with great humility,
especially from Christians in a country at peace like the UK. Any response must
first be founded not only in prayer for Ukrainians, Russians and their leaders,
but through practical support for refugees both in surrounding Eastern European
countries and through the willingness to accept refugees to the UK.
When it comes specifically to rearmament, while the
Christological pacifist will refuse to take up arms herself, she will
acknowledge the potential for governments to restrain evil through the use of
force as mentioned above. The nature and level of this force cannot be
prescribed in detail with any confidence but can broadly agree with the
just-war tradition’s attempt to reduce the effects of war. Discernment is a key
concept in scripture and the Christian must through prayer and understanding of
the situation come to some form of judgment when it comes to what is happening
in Ukraine. From my perspective it seems clear that Russia has been the
aggressor. One does not have to agree with all aspects of Western liberalism to
see the more just cause Ukrainians have in light of the invasion. While
diplomacy must be ongoing, it is reasonable to suggest Ukraine had little other
option when Russia invaded but to defend its cities and may be aligned with how
God might use the state in Rom. 13 or 1 Tim. 2.
When it comes to Christian witness to the UK state and its
response a Christological pacifist approach does not necessarily preclude the
gift of weapons provided it is discerned that they will not escalate the conflict,
something which is not clear in Ukraine: it has been suggested that if Russia
incurs serious losses Putin may employ nuclear weapons – who is to say that
some form of concession to Russia would be worse than this scenario? It must
also resist any suggestion of war developing into a religious or mythical
status for Ukraine.[3]
There is the added complication that many Ukrainian and Russian fighters are
confessing Christians (mostly Orthodox) themselves, culminating in a situation
where we (British Christians) might be advocating giving of arms for the body
of Christ to tear itself apart. Many of the comments of Patriarch Kirill of
Moscow have been destructive in this regard and part of our witness must surely
be to challenge such pronouncements on the basis of faith in Christ as Rowan
Williams has done.[4]
Much more could be said. War is complex and eludes simple solutions. In these brief reflections I hope to have faithfully outlined how Christological pacifist may approach the war in Ukraine. Above all, let us pray that God gives us wisdom (James 1.5).
[1]
Hays, Richard, ‘Narrate and embody: a response to Nigel Biggar, ‘Specify and
Distinguish,’ in Studies in Christian Ethics 22.2 (2009), 188-190. Hays
engaged with ethicist Nigel Biggar in a debate and subsequent set of articles
in 2009 on the subject of whether the New Testament supports the use of lethal
violence. See Biggar, Nigel, ‘Specify and Distinguish! Interpreting the New
Testament on ‘Non-violence’, Studies in Christian Ethics 22.2 (2009) 164–184;
Hays, Richard, , ‘Narrate and embody: a response to Nigel Biggar, ‘Specify and
Distinguish,’ in Studies in Christian Ethics 22.2 (2009), 185-198;
Biggar, Nigel, ‘The New Testament and Violence: Round Two,’ Studies in
Christian Ethics 23(1) (2010), 73–80; Hays, Richard, ‘The Thorny Task of
Reconciliation: Another Response to Nigel Biggar,’ Studies in Christian Ethics
23(1) (2010), 81–86. Needless to say, I believe Hays is more persuasive: ‘Just warriors
can certainly appeal to the Old Testament as Christian scripture, to the
dictates of experience, and to a long tradition of theological argument since
Augustine. But the New Testament documents themselves stubbornly testify to an
eschatological countervision: the Gospels portray Jesus as proclaiming and
embodying radical nonviolent service (e.g., Mk 10:42–45), and the Epistles
portray the church as a community of reconciliation that bears witness
proleptically to the peace of the New Creation.’ (Hays, ‘Thorny task of
Reconciliation, 86).
[2] Day, Dorothy, ‘Why Do the Members of Christ Tear One Another?’, The Catholic Worker, Feb 1, 1942 (https://catholicworker.org/390-html/)
[3]
While this primarily is a war of defence for Ukraine, such language is perhaps
beginning, e.g. https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1616359294538072069
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