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"It is taught among us that all government in the world and all established rule and laws were instituted and ordained by God for the sake of good order, and that Christians may …. punish evildoers with the sword, engage in just wars, serve as soldiers, etc."

Yet note how the article ends: "But when commands of the civil authority cannot be obeyed without sin, we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)."

So it would seem that American soldiers, Graner included, at Abu Ghraib failed on at least two accounts—working counter to the purpose of peace, and if some reports are true, failing to disobey orders that no Christian could in good conscience follow.

Protesting the Abuse of Power

How, then, should Christians, respond to abuses of power? A near contemporary of Augustine, Patrick of Ireland wrote a letter around 460 rebuking the Christian king Coroticus for slaughtering and enslaving new converts to the faith. "I know not what I should the rather mourn: whether those who are slain, or those who are captured, or those whom the devil grievously ensnared (meaning the captors themselves)." He has harsh words for Coroticus and his court, who by selling his captives to barbarian Picts, "hand over the members of Christ as it were to a brothel. What manner of hope in God have you? …. God will judge; for it is written, 'Not only those who commit evil, but those that consent with them shall be damned.'"

The parallel with Abu Ghraib is not exact here. But we can take note of Patrick's outrage and grief. Coroticus' captives were enslaved, and the women—many of whom had consecrated themselves as virgins—used for the pleasure of barbarian chieftains. Pictures of rape and dehumanizing experiments of a sexual nature reportedly done by professing "Christians" should likewise provoke deep anger and sadness among us—not only for the injustice of the crimes but for the damage done to Christ's name.

Another example of protest comes from a Christian tradition opposed to war altogether. The Schleitheim Confession (1527), Anabaptists' first and formative statement on war, precludes the possibility that Christians can engage in war with a good conscience. Jesus "forbids the violence of the sword when He says: 'the princes of this world lord it over them, etc., but among you it shall not be so.' " How then, should Christians resist evil? "The worldly are armed with steel and iron, but Christians are armed with the armor of God, with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and with the Word of God."

In this Christian tradition, then, Christians will not take prisoners of war, for Christians will not fight. But that does not mean Christians cannot actively work to right evils that have been done either in Christ's name or outside it. This, then, is the motivation for the Christian Peacemaker Teams' presence in Iraq, calling commanders of military bases to account for injustice done to prisoners, attempting to help Iraqis gain access to family and friends imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, and urging police to cajole Army officers into acting on the abuses. It is also the bedrock for the kind of compassion shown by men like Henry Dunant who founded the International Red Cross and inspired the first Geneva Conventions to protect the rights of prisoners of war.

Bringing Abu Ghraib Close to Home

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May (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48