I don’t want to beat this horse to long, but, for the record, my primary argument against pacifism isn’t that it doesn’t work.
My primary argument is that it is unbiblical and immoral.

God doesn’t smite theives either, so where is the argument against arresting and jailing them…

As for the recent controversy, the markings on the scope have been recognized by troops and civilians for quite a while – it was an open secret. I don’t think it was a wise idea, though the group bringing it to the world’s attention does the US no favors – it provides a convinent excuse to those who would attack US forces. Not, of course, that they wouldn’t do so anyway.

I’ll take industrial/technical superiority over moral superiority any day. I’d rather have both of course, but the former does a better job of keeping oneself alive and free.

See my statement above about smuggling the Jews.

Since the Sermon is rooted in God’s character, perhaps instead you should be asking God that question. Why does he not smite murderers before they can fire the shot? Why does he not smite them immediately afterward, either?

That’s the problem with just war theory. You never can argue that it’s “right.” Pacifism argues that war is wrong, and just war theorists argue that pacifism doesn’t “work.” You can talk about right and wrong with ALL other ethical controversies, but when it comes to war, suddenly pragmatism supersedes Jesus’ ethic of nonviolence.

Honestly, though, I am not a historian. I wasn’t even alive at the time, mind you. I’ve been to Auschwitz and Dachau, but of course taking a tour is nothing compared to the real experience of the Holocaust.

What I do know is that we, as the church, did not stand up and resist Hitler’s imperial ideals. Jesus did not condone violence to Caesar or any of Caesar’s soldiers, but neither did he let himself be cowed by them.

Had an international church stance been established early on that condemned the singling out of the Hebrews, this would have given enough influence to the church in Germany for people to not give in to Hitler’s hate speech.

That is my conjecture, anyways. How I wish we would speak out against atrocities like that in the present instead of only ones that are in the past! How about AIDS in South Africa? Sure, Haiti’s situation is big now because it just happened, but what about the worldwide human trafficking problem? That flies under the radar.

“This is love, not that we loved, but that God loved us first.” I think it follows pretty straightforwardly that if what we think is love toward our brother is compelling us to enmity toward God, then that is not love that comes from God.

I assume that, if some radical pointed a gun to a loved one and ordered you to apostasize “or else,” you would not do so. We don’t violate our relationship in God whenever we might think it would be expedient for our interests, or for anyone else’s.

(Incidental historical note: the Allies didn’t have compelling evidence about the Holocaust until 1943ish.)

Adam

So then perhaps you can answer.

When a weak man is attacked with deadly force, how do you love his enemy without hating him?

Will doing this change the Roman’s character? Probably not. Will turning the other cheek make your opponent feel bad for hitting you? Probably not. (On this point, I fault the Didache for being naive.) Doing this won’t transform them, but it does transform us, since it is an outward imitation of God’s character.

Let it be known that I only directed comments related to pacifism at Mr. Hampton. I didn’t come here to debate. On the other hand, being meek does not mean I will be cowed by scorn.

What should “we” have done about Nazi Germany? Hey — why did the Jews migrate to Poland and not here and the UK? Probably because “we” didn’t open our borders to them. Oh, and because we didn’t participate in the war until “we” were personally attacked. We (the church) should have taken a Gospel-oriented stance and smuggled the Jews out instead of a militancy stance.

What should the German soldiers have done? They died for God and country, too. They were taught to obey their superiors without question, too. They are the same product as our soldiers. The only difference is who their leader was.

As for Matthew 5: it’s rooted in God’s character, and not in common sense. Sure, God does smite people in his vengeance, but 99.999999% of the time he instead sends his life-giving rain and sun so their crops don’t fail, causing them to starve. And if God continues to give life to HIS enemies, then also ought to give life to OUR enemies.

Just as Moses expounded the law on Mt. Sinai to make the Hebrews into a peculiar people with a law that is grounded, not in common sense, but in the fact that God is holy, thus we also are given a “law” in Matthew 5 that is grounded in the fact that God is compassionate. We are also to be a peculiar, set apart people. This is not just “private vengeance but doesn’t apply to national stuff.” That would be explaining this away as common sense. If you are a reverend, then surely you realize Matthew is portraying Jesus as Moses’ spitting image here. If Moses on Mt. Sinai was making a normative law that set the Hebrews apart, then obviously Matthew is setting Jesus as doing the same for us. Set apart from worldly wisdom and politics. (That doesn’t mean laissez-faire, mind you.)

You’re making a distinction without a difference. Going to Germany in 1940 to kill Nazis was going to Germany to save Jews.

Also, you said “Love your enemy” was reason enough to call killing German soldiers in WW2 a sin.
The trouble with that is that “Love your enemy” starts meaning “Hate the weak” or “Hate whoever your enemy is killing”.

Whatever else “Love your enemy” means, it can’t mean “At the expense of anyone other than yourself.”

So take any example you like. How do you love an enemy, who is prepared and ready to use deadly force against someone, while still loving the other.

Stepping in front of a bullet doesn’t count, because, presumably, they’ve got more than one.

A counter-question:

(And I hate counter-questions, but I allow it myself because I wrote a long response to you already.)

Was it a sin for German soldiers to shoot and kill American soldiers? Why or why not?

And of course I’m not talking about Eichmann and Himmler, just your typical German conscript.

Adam

If I understand you, you are mocking the idea that Americans should have gone to Germany to save Jews, but commending the fact that they actually went to Germany to kill Germans.

I don’t know how to respond to that; I’ll just let it stand on its own.

I didn’t understand the other things you said. (So perhaps I misunderstood that as well.)

Adam

It was a sin, and for many reasons. Most basically: “Love your enemy.” We could go more technical about the imago Dei, or arrogating ourselves to God’s position, but from my end, that is enough.

I’m not saying that government is useless. It’s clearly better than the alternative. It is a matter of common grace that power-hungry people can organize themselves into a political system rather than, say, killing their enemies wantonly. Praise God for how much better politics is than that!

Similarly, greedy people organize themselves into markets, and maximize wealth. Praise God for that!

But when you cease to say, “Thank God that our corrupt nature still organizes itself into a semi-functioning system” and say instead, “This is the best God has for us, and we need to protect and perfect it” — then you are running outside of what the Bible says, and indeed, beyond what is theologically coherent given a worldview in which the world of sin and death run contrary to God’s will.

So I let the government punish wrongdoers and create a sewer system carry away my excrement, and I let the market determine the price of flour. But, I don’t pretend that there is some specifically Christian system for dealing with the ordering of society or the construction of sewers. (You can argue from reason about those matters, sure. There probably is a best way to build a sewer.) All of that belongs to a second-best system, in which I ultimately have no investment.

Adam

I guess you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but if your theory doesn’t work there, then it doesn’t work.
Nobody’s advocating killing people for wearing plaid.

And your answer to Paul doesn’t work either. What, so all of North America needed to emigrate to Nazi Germany and begin smuggling Jews out?

Smuggling is all well and good, but at some point you have to recognize that even while people were smuggling Jews, others were being murdered. What then?

“Excuse me Mr. Nazi, I have travel papers for that Jew there. If you just excuse me, I’ll just take him and his buddies out of the chamber and be on my way.”

You’re confusing pacifism with peace-making. They are not the same.

When American soldiers shot and killed German soldiers in World War II, was that a sin? If so, why?

How do you interpret Paul’s words in Romans that the state does not bear the sword in vain?

Thanks for your answers. I’m sincerely interested to hear you out on this. I’ve always wondered precisely what the pacifist position is on the use of force, even deadly force, in such circumstances.

PTM

I think we should have striven for moral, rather than industrial, superiority over the Nazis. Maximilian Kolbe comes to mind. We all should have been among the number of Righteous Gentiles smuggling Jews out of the Nazi’s clutches. We should have proclaimed truth in the face of real consequences for doing so.

Not incidentally, I have changed the referent of “we” in my response to refer to all Christians. A luxury of gospel-based morality is that we don’t have to define moral imperatives with respect to the nationality of the actors. The nationalist answer to “what should we have done?” is a clear, “Fight for your country, of course” — which is not much help if the Nazis are running your country.

But perhaps you can identify a clear threshold beyond which we know we should stop obeying our governments’ orders to kill people.

Adam