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Christianity Today, March (Web-only), 2007 |

Iraq: The War at Four

The Pulse: Iraq Reconsidered

In retrospect, was it a just invasion or not?

posted 3/16/2007 09:31AM

Every other month, CT will ask editors on our masthead, along with selected evangelical leaders, about current events within our movement and the broader culture—and then publish the best of their ...

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Bob Srigley

Posted: March 23, 2007 12:41 PM

I noticed that the comments critical of the administration's effort in Iraq are rife with suspicion and hyper-sensitive to the possibility of conspiracy working within our government. These tendencies are, of course, encouraged by a media which has been remarkable for bearing false witness. If President Bush's motives have been 100% pristine; and if his principal advisors such as Cheney and Rice have been likewise selflessly patriotic in their counsel and actions, would the media coverage have been any different? I think not. It may be that the real reason for the hue and cry against Bush can be found in Psalm 2: Why do the heathen rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing? However imperfectly our President may discern God's will, I believe he is seeking it. It is important that we not lose perspective on what genuine evil looks like. Genuine evil is personified by Saddam and those who murder for Islam. And is furthered by those who imagine evil on the part of our leaders.

Mike	Posted: March 23, 2007 12:26 PM


i feel that we were not wise to enter this war especially seeing as Americans we don't have the will to carry on an long war. These people (like in Viet Nam) have been at war for centuries. In responce to Roger one of the reasons the erly Christians didn't hold public office or join the military was the requirement to particpate in the worship of the emperor.

kathy

Posted: March 21, 2007 7:49 AM

As a Christian living in Japan, I am regularly asked about the Bush Administration, the US-Iraq war, Afghanistan, and American Christians' opinion, by Christians and non-Christians. The common thread is that Japanese assume all American Christians are pro-war, and 100% behind Bush, that the war is a Christian crusade, and that it was motivated entirely to protect American oil interests. The article and comments posted show how obviously incorrect those impressions are. Being rather politically aware, I definitely have my own, rather strongly held opinions about these issues. But I have decided that it is more important to keep them to myself and focus my comments and energy on the message of the gospel than on discussing politics with people. Why? Because if I with others of the same opinion, it serves no purpose. If with those of differing opinions, the discussion could end up causing them to reject the much more important message of the gospel. That is not worth it!

Lindy Scott

Posted: March 20, 2007 8:36 PM

I am very saddened that evangelicals are so unaware of the criteria of Just War Theory. Many others and I have written how the invasion of Iraq failed to satisfy at least six of the seven major criteria of a just war. Too many within the church are guilty of sloppy thinking by affirming "just" to every war we have fought. Our loyalty to Jesus Christ must be more important than a cheap subservient form of "patriotism." True patriotism means we speak truth to our country, even when our nation is wrong. Christianity Today should have facilitated a rigorous debate about the war before it began. Even now, CT could do the church a big favor by having two articulate Christians debate the "justness" of this war using the accepted criteria. This would not only help us understand our nation's current moral standing before a just God, but also prepare us to respond in the future when our country is faced with international challenges. I suggest Rene Padilla and Richard Land as possible writers.

dahrev

Posted: March 20, 2007 4:57 PM

'Narro Road' is a strong reminder of the 'hate' that often attaches itself to exclusivisitc so-called religious people. his definition of what it means to be a "Christian" would frighten Jesus the Christ himself. I would also question the wisdom of looking in the Bible for a "Just-war" justification for this conflict. Just a quick reading of Joshua is a reminder that "God" at one time thought of "racial cleansing" as just & didn't Jesus himself say to Peter, "Put away the sword, because the one who lives by the sword dies by the sword"? Diplomacy, as someone above stated, is the only true answer in the face of the possible nuclear dangers. We need statesmanship now more than ever & our cowboy president just doesn't seem to possess those gifts in any measure.

Mark Leckrone

Posted: March 20, 2007 5:51 AM

Unfortunately most of the article and the comments miss the middle east perspective. The Muslim nation is operating from an "old testiment" perspective. Strict rules, harsh punnishments, literal translations. Jesus, changed everything when he arrived on the scene. "You will go to Hell if you do not love and follow me, but I will love you either way". The Muslim thought is varied from: "Be just like me or you will go to Hell and I will hate you", to "Be just like me or you will go to Hell and i will kill you and all of your relatives and all of your neighbors". I don't know about the Just nature of War. That is above my limited perspective. But God gave us a brain and free choice for a reason. He could have created us to follow his instructions like programmed robots but he wanted us to make individual decisions which will lead to an individual eternal evaluation at our death.

MJE	Posted: March 19, 2007 6:06 PM

It seems like almost everyone has forgotten: Saddam Hussein was the villain in this whole sad saga! HE used chemical weapons on his own citizens (not to mention all kinds of other terrible atrocities he and his immediate family committed). HE invaded his neighbors and threatened other ones. HE refused to come clean with the existence of other weapons of mass destruction even though the UN demanded this accounting more than a dozen times! The first President Bush, perhaps unwisely, tried to deal with Saddam and resisted finishing the war appropriately, but Saddam kept violating the terms of that cease-fire. We did not attack preemptively! We attacked because it was the only thing Saddam couldn’t ignore. It had to be done given what we knew then and Saddam’s smirking silence. It was, perhaps, naïve to think that we could build a democracy in Iraq, since the culture is so different, but no one can say that we didn’t give them a really good chance at freedom and liberty!

Tom Fay

Posted: March 19, 2007 4:55 PM

It is beyond belief that you can still find 50% that are in favor of the war. Perhaps it is time to do a little "housecleaning" in the editorial department and find thinkers who do not want to intertwine Christianity with the world. Perhaps the magazine is a mirror of our state of the church versus a reflection of Christ. Maybe the title of the magazine - "Christianity Today" is quite appropriate after all.

Thomas Boynton

Posted: March 19, 2007 4:29 PM

Answering these questions is a reflection of what loyalties a person has. If a person is answering as a "loyal" American, they may see things somewhat differently than if they are answering as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Does the Narrow Way allow His Followers to kill their enemies? Are we not required to love our enemies as ourselves? Doesn't loving them preclude, a priori, killing them? As goes bringing the Gospel to Iraq, it does not arrive ballistically. All this war is doing, when tagged as waged by a "Christian" nation, is prove to the Muslim communities that we are callous Crusaders. When, actually, in time and space, did Iraq become America's enemy anyway? al-Qaeda declared war on America. Iraq never declared war on America. The war was "optional". The language to justify it was/is the language of Babylon's trollops. And Mammon is their god.

Lester Wright

Posted: March 19, 2007 7:05 AM

Like the shepherds of the flock in Jeremiah's day, the modern day leaders of the church are guided more by their own reasoning than God's word. Are they too afraid to obey God or are they just ignorant of His Word? God stands in the congregation of the mighty; he judges among the gods. How long will you judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? (How long will we tolerate injustice for ourselves and others?) Selah (Stop and think about that) ... Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked (evil tyrants). They know not (they lack revelation), neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness (ignorance): all the foundations of the earth are out of course (the world system has been perverted). I have said, you are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, OGod, judge the earth. Psalm 82

George

Posted: March 18, 2007 5:02 AM


Very timely quality research article. It is also non strident,apolitical and based on serious research from a serious publication.

Jaxon

Posted: March 17, 2007 7:55 PM

The comment posted by "Narro Road" shows the exact reason why the witness of who Jesus is has been utterly distorted by the enemy (satan). I, as a Christian, have no right to protest the war? I have the God given right to judge the leaders of our nation as lying snakes who are being controlled by wealthy fascists who desire a command and control world government, and they see the Iraq War as the perfect opportunity to obliterate the good name of America so as to finally collapse the biggest thorn in their side for over 200 years: a free, Constiutional Republic in North America. We are being destroyed by the false war on terror, begun by the same people who assisted the 911 attacks, and it does not matter what you or I say to the contrary. Only the truth will determine the outcome of this stage of history, and the truth is that 95% of what we are told is packed with lies, and our nation is being used as an engine for world government. Now, please. Prove me wrong.

Randy McClure

Posted: March 17, 2007 4:18 PM

Again, as usual, those agaist the war avoid, deny and distort any and all facts. There is only name calling and suggested hidden agendas. However, none of them will go back and see the evidence. The MAJORITY of Americans, allies and even liberal Democrats are ON RECORD as believing that it was necessary to invade Iraq. Did we do everything just right? likely not. But a GRET MAJORITY decided it WS NEEDED!

Martha Huntley

Posted: March 17, 2007 10:29 AM

I have to take issue with the statement that it was universally believed Iraq/Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I never believed it, and I based my beliefs that they didn't on what I read in the newspapers and history books. That they had WMD was a shell/sell game that way too many people -- but certainly not everybody -- bought. Whatever our intentions, we have succeeded in destroying Iraq and the Christian witness there, increasing hatred, vengefulness, and providing a staging ground, and making our own country and the world a worse place. And talk about family values! What we have done in breaking and destroying Iraqui family units and our own military and reservist families is appalling.

Christian Adjemian

Posted: March 17, 2007 9:16 AM

Friends, our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). To talk about patriotism to justify what even the US's closest allies (except GB) criticized as an invasion without proper justification is think as Americans, not as Christians. The US is just one more kingdom of this world, and it will pass. It has not bowed the knee to Jesus. As for seeing the Iraqis come to Christ, go and read about this. You will find that the Christian church in Iraq, which existed under Sadam, is nearly gone now. The bitterness against an occupation army considered "Christian" by the local population means that these people will be even more hardened to the gospel for generations to come. Arabs have long memories, unlike Americans.

John Grayson

Posted: March 17, 2007 2:16 AM

It saddens me to see that Christians can debate the murder of other people as though there were two sides to the issue for Christians. Its no wonder that evangelical ferver is largely effective with social misfits. Rational and decent agnostics and atheists present and hold to more Christ like positions on the issue of killing innocent people in the name of, or with the sanction of God. I see absolutely no difference betweeen radically Jihadists and some evangelical Christians that can gloriously and feveerently kill and be killed for a God supported mission. We who believe in and are in fellowship with a living and personally present Savior, find no complexity in the decision to practice and testify to the Prince of Peace. To us the concept of a just war is demonic possession which all of us are subject to experience from time to time. However, when we become instruments of evil instead of peace, we are expected to realize it and repent.

Scott McCarty

Posted: March 17, 2007 1:39 AM

Having lived in the Middle East in the 1960s, Israel and Lebanon, and having meditated historically and actually from France on the confused situation there, I am convinced that the US leaders don't really know much at all about the rest of the world, especially the Middle East. Without doubt the most incomprehensible stupidity is the idea that the USA is going to impose democracy on a people and and area that have had no understanding, no education , and no practice of our particular Western political conception of government. ALL OF MIDDLE EAST HISTORY has always been anchored in one man dictatorial rule, wheather tribal head, calif, bey, king, sultan. This concept is in their blood, their thinking, their mores. If the middle-aged person from Texas running our country had ever studied history OR HAD ANY ADVISORS WHO HAD, this democratic argument would have never been mentioned. I am so sad to have to say that Americans as a whole are among the most ignorant people in the world.

Dale Hogard

Posted: March 16, 2007 10:09 PM

As a 100% disabled Vietnam veteran. I hate war. But I love freedom more. Only lack of knowledge allows us to believe that these people who hold so much hate can be reasoned with. They are bred and fed on hate. and the ones who are so outspoken fight the war from the same side as our enemy. I also am a born again Christian who has returned to Vietnam with the Love of Jesus. I lost many close close friends in Vietnam. Including my 3 closest. The death and loss of these precious lives grieves me today. But I have 58,000 plus reasons to return in Jesus name to share the Love of Christ with these people. And we have 3000 lives that make the Iraq and Afgan fields Holy Ground. I also want to tell our men and ladies how much I Love them and respect them and thank them for the job they are doing that the media will NOT TELL> War is HELL . Tell the men and ladies and the world how much we suport them and watch the WAR CHANGE! Oh and pray don't talk.........................

Brianbaron

Posted: March 16, 2007 8:02 PM

My United Methodist Bishop Rev. Joseph Sprauge of Northern Illinois spoke out against the war before it happened. He was prophetic at the time and contested by many persons. Yet now I hear the echos of his prophetic interpretation of the Iraq attack on the airwaves in both spiritual and secular media. I still grieve for the 20 year old young man's family from my town that I preached and presided over his funeral for that was killed as a Marine in Iraq, for what reason? May God give eternal light and peace to Lance Corpral Neil Petsche. He is buried 15 yards from my grandparents in Lena, IL.

Jordan W Lester

Posted: March 16, 2007 5:38 PM


Hmm, this article really is tricky as it gives no biblical explanation of whether Iraq is just or not: only subjective opionions for and against it that lack coherence. I guess the real question left unanswered in this article is how we ought to interpret Paul's writing in Scripture that the state has the ability to use the sword and anyone who disobeys the law is punishable by the sword...hmm!

DocRoc

Posted: March 16, 2007 5:10 PM

We now have 4 years of retrospect on the war in Iraq. But from the beginning I have been fully convinced that Bush 2 went into Iraq to do what Bush 1 couldn't do and Clinto refused to do; namely search and destroy Saddam Hussein. Bush 2 was saving face for his daddy. The terrorists who instigated 9/11 came from Afghanistan, but Bush 2 focused on Iraq virtually allowing Bin Laden to go scott-free. What would be the motivation to bring Saddam Hussein to justice for crimes committed in his own country and allow Bin Laden to escape justice for crimes committed in our own country? Think of a word that starts with an O- and ends with -IL. God will hold us accountable for serving Mammon over Him.

Bill Simpson

Posted: March 16, 2007 5:03 PM

Jeffret Addicott, Director of the Center for Terrorism Law, St, Mary's University School of Law, San Antonio, Texas, said that there has not been a "Just War" since the mid-40s(Google "Just War" to find the description of such), so to try to fit the attack on Iraq into the "Just War" mold is futile and counter productive. From a political perspective, I invite you to view this site, which I have entitled, "In Their Own Words.............", in the event CT is attempting to create an issue to slam Our President, and to besmirch our brave young men and women who are in harm's way in a somewhat subtle way. http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv NOTE: For some reason only the first "star" registered; I desired to show a three star rating. Bill Simpson olspice@satx.rr.com

Sawak Sarju

Posted: March 16, 2007 3:28 PM


I never supported this war in Iraq. I wrote Bush before he stared this illegal war and warn him of the collateral damage. Bush has done more damage to Iraq than Sadam Hussien. There is more blood than oil now in Iraq.

Evance Hector

Posted: March 16, 2007 2:47 PM

Having just read the previous article and the responses to it,i am apalled at the ignorance of those socalled Christians who seek to justify the war.I am amazed at the down wright stupidity of the one who thinks that Christ is coming to Kill the 200million army of islam.Such people are the ones who give credence to the actions of the most Stupid president of the U S.That is why the world is in the State that it's in at the moment. We need men with Vision to make a positive difference for Good in our World.What we have at the moment are two leaders who are ignorant of what is Justice and fairplay,and devoid of any real understanding of what Evil is,and who are the Evil Doers in our World Today.

A hermit

Posted: March 16, 2007 1:53 PM

I give this four stars, because it is truly democratic- all views are considered. Having said that, I believe that those evangelicals supporting Bush and the Iraq war, see through naive rose colored glasses what they desire to believe because Bush is "one of us", and what this power and money hungry administration wants them to believe. Satan is the prince of lies (and distortions)- this administration lied about the certainty of weapons of mass destruction, created gulag like concentration camps, and has given large defense contractors and corporations (many like Haliburton with direct ties to this admistration) windfall profits while shortchanging our troops and veterans, given our wealthiest tax breaks while running up huge deficits.

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