This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
We are just a few days out from the United States’ bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran. My actual job is to have opinions on things, and yet I don’t know exactly what to think of this.
The US action happened on a Saturday night, and so a world full of pastors and lay leaders had to think of what to say the next morning. Add to that the reality that the situation seems to be changing minute by minute—“There’s a cease-fire,” “No, there’s not,” “Iran’s nuclear program is over,” “No, it’s not.”
So what do you do if you’re not sure what to say when someone asks you, “What do you think about Iran?”
When I say I don’t know what to think, that’s only partly true. I know that I don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons. I know that the regime there is authoritarian and cruel to their own people, including my fellow Christians.
I know that I don’t want another regional war in the Middle East. And yet I know—even with my well-known thoughts about President Donald Trump—that none of us have access to the intelligence reports that he and the Pentagon have.
Maybe you are in a similar place.
“The fog of war” is a well-worn reminder that things often aren’t immediately clear in a time of military combat. But what about “the fog of peace” or, more precisely, “the fog of not knowing if we are at peace or at war”?
You might not know what to think, much less what to say. And I think that’s okay.
It doesn’t feel okay to many people right now because, in a social media age, we are expected to all have immediate opinions on everything right away. But on some things, what seems to be an instant reaction actually isn’t instant.
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An attorney I was just talking to said that the least accurate courtroom movie he’s ever seen is the old 1992 classic, My Cousin Vinny. He probably thought this about the movie immediately, maybe even groaned out loud, the first time he saw it.
That wasn’t a “hot take.” He had years of experience practicing law. When he was staying up all night taking his LSATs, he wasn’t doing so to do film criticism. And when he was honing his craft year after year, it wasn’t so he could analyze Joe Pesci’s dialogue.
And yet all that study and all that experience created the kind of expertise where he can recognize what’s true to life and what’s not, much more than those of us who have never argued a case.
The stakes of war and peace are, of course, monumentally higher than a take on a movie, but the analogy is closer than we think. For many people, events around the world assume an unreal movie-like character. And for almost all of us, what we think about the Middle East will change the situation as much as that attorney’s opinion could retroactively rewrite the script of My Cousin Vinny.
But just because our views can’t change a dangerous world situation one way or the other doesn’t mean that we can be indifferent. After all, our views change us.
For President Trump or Secretary of State Rubio or an Air Force pilot over Iranian airspace, what’s most important for the country are their actual decisions, not so much the motives behind them. But what’s important for us on such things is the reverse. The motives for our viewpoints are more important than where we end up.
I don’t agree with strict pacifists on biblical interpretation grounds, but I respect their view. My Anabaptist ancestors consistently held the conviction that violence is always wrong, and I don’t think they were stupid.
For most Christian pacifists, the motive for opposing a war is not moral cowardice or conflict avoidance but a reasoned and reasonable reading of what Jesus demands of us. Likewise, most Christians who hold that war is sometimes necessary (as I do) generally do so for the same reasons, though with a different conclusion.
The convictional pacifist is much closer to the just-war proponent than he is to the one arguing that the ayatollah is really a good guy. Likewise, the convictional just-war proponent is much closer to the Christian pacifist than she is to a militarist who gets an adrenaline jolt from war and treats it all like a video game.
Our motives matter. If the Christian who sometimes thinks war is the right thing to do cannot pray for peace the way the Bible demands, something is wrong. Likewise, if the pacifist cannot pray for justice, something is wrong.
Even that conversation is misleading, though, because very few people make decisions based on prior convictions.
The pull right now is to make those decisions entirely tribally. I am not a Trump supporter, so I ought, this view goes, to conclude immediately that the bombings were reckless and wrong. Or you might be a Trump supporter, and the pressure is for you to conclude that his action was wise and decisive, full stop. The cultural pressure is against anyone saying, “I don’t know whether this was the right thing or not; we will see.”
Christians, however, are called to wisdom. Our Lord’s brother, James, told us that “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17, ESV throughout).
Wisdom means knowing the limits of what we can know and being open to altering our viewpoints when new factors become clear—even if that doesn’t fit with what is tribally demanded.
The “shock and awe” on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq over 20 years ago seemed to be a rout; now, looking back, we know better. Many people wanted our country out of Afghanistan, and celebrated that decision, until they saw the chaos and bloodshed of the way the US exited.
As with many other things, there are (at least) two ways to fall short on what’s right and true. James warned of a “double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (1:8). But Jesus also told of two sons whose father asked them to work in the vineyard. One said no, “but afterward he changed his mind and went,” while the other said he would go but didn’t. Jesus then asked, “Which of the two did the will of his father?” (Matt. 21:31).
He then said of the religious leaders around him: “For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (v. 32).
Our opinions on what’s the best way forward on a news item are not nearly as important as the questions about which Jesus was asking, of course. But sometimes, our reaction to such things can give us a little test of our bent.
Sometimes “I don’t know” is a lazy refusal to think, or, worse, a fearful refusal to do what’s right. But sometimes “I don’t know” is the best answer, even as we pray for wisdom to do the next right thing.
Russell Moore is the editor in chief at Christianity Today and leads its Public Theology Project.
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