War: what should we do?

[Aunty Jane]

Romans 12:17-21....
"Return evil for evil to no one. Take into consideration what is fine from the viewpoint of all men. 18 If possible, as far as it depends on you, be peaceable with all men. 19 Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but yield place to the wrath; for it is written: “‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ says the LORD.” 20 But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing this you will heap fiery coals on his head.” 21 Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good."

or...Matthew 5:43-48....
“You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? 47 And if you greet your brothers only, what extraordinary thing are you doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing? 48 You must accordingly be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

or...2 Corinthians 10:3-5....
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare according to what we are in the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. 5 For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are bringing every thought into captivity to make it obedient to the Christ."

How do these fit with a Christian going to war?

 

[Cristo Rei]

@D

Romans 12:17-21....
"Return evil for evil to no one. Take into consideration what is fine from the viewpoint of all men. 18 If possible, as far as it depends on you, be peaceable with all men. 19 Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but yield place to the wrath; for it is written: “‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ says the LORD.” 20 But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing this you will heap fiery coals on his head.” 21 Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good."

or...Matthew 5:43-48....
“You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? 47 And if you greet your brothers only, what extraordinary thing are you doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing? 48 You must accordingly be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

or...2 Corinthians 10:3-5....
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare according to what we are in the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. 5 For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are bringing every thought into captivity to make it obedient to the Christ."

How do these fit with a Christian going to war?

Fair enough Aunty J.

But what if it's in self defence. Can I fight off someone who is trying to do bad to myself and/or family and/or property?
Or do I sit back and watch harm come to them/me?

 

[Mantis]

Murder is premeditated.
That's the difference, right?

Yes

 

[Episkopos]

It's yet another ethical dilemma, we know "Thou shalt not kill", "Love your enemies", and "blessed are the peacemakers", so are we supposed to just lay down and let our foes walk all over us, as would have happened with the Nazis and Japanese?
And regarding Nam, should draftees have refused pointblank to go?

We have to remember who we are dealing with in the world. War is about one form of toxicity against another.

The war in Ukraine is about a toxic autocracy facing off against the encroachment of a toxic democracy.

Choose your poison! (or not)

In contrast, the spiritual war pits truth against lies. Light against darkness. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal...and they don't kill people.

 

[amadeus]

Sounds like u got out of there before it turned bad. Lucky.
I find it so ironic and unfortunate that America fought so hard to hold off the communists only to now be over run by it in many ways.
You know what I mean...

Even so. We had the weapons including a machine gun to defend our radio site, but all we ever did was clean them. Some time, after the escalation began 4 men from my company were killed at another of our radio stations.

One of them was a good friend, who attended microwave radio school with me at Ft Monmouth New Jersey just before going to Viet Nam. Strange how to this day I am able to picture him better in my mind than many much more recently acquired friends who have died.

 

[amadeus]

Ecclesiastes 3:1 - To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
2 A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
4 A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
7 A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
8 A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

"My times are in thy hand..." Psalm 31:15

 

[Dropship]

Afghanistan was another botched job by the politicians; amazingly defeatist Obama publicly admitted the US couldn't whup the Taliban, which must have made the Taliban's morale soar sky-high, and the US troops morale plummet!


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MacArthur had the right idea..-

 

[Mantis]

I think if we had an invasion in America that most people would fight to protect their family and I see nothing wrong with that, if you had to kill in that situation.

 

[Nancy]

It's yet another ethical dilemma, we know "Thou shalt not kill", "Love your enemies", and "blessed are the peacemakers", so are we supposed to just lay down and let our foes walk all over us, as would have happened with the Nazis and Japanese?
And regarding Nam, should draftees have refused pointblank to go?

Hi Dropship,
I agree with @Mantis here: "Thou shall not murder, not kill. There is a difference."
In the OT, God intervened and led His people to victory. I think He is only on the side of those who love Him and are warring justly...? JMHO

 

[Nancy]

Thanks! So am I!

I was in Viet Nam from August of 1964 to August of 1965. My duty station was at a microwave radio station located on a small U.S. Army compound within the Danang Air Force Base.

There were 16,000 Americans troops there when I arrived... almost none of them combat soldiers. When I left 12 months later there 65,000 and most of the increase consisted of combat troops. It was in January of that year that President LBJ began to escalate our military involvement:

View attachment 23864

❤

 

[Dropship]

Hi Dropship,
I agree with @Mantis here: "Thou shall not murder, not kill. There is a difference."
In the OT, God intervened and led His people to victory. I think He is only on the side of those who love Him and are warring justly...? JMHO

Yes..

 

[Dropship]

I think if we had an invasion in America that most people would fight to protect their family and I see nothing wrong with that, if you had to kill in that situation.

Yay..

 

[Aunty Jane]

Fair enough Aunty J.

But what if it's in self defence. Can I fight off someone who is trying to do bad to myself and/or family and/or property?
Or do I sit back and watch harm come to them/me?

Personal self-defence is permissible to a degree. If you look at the actions of our exemplar, when Jesus saw danger coming, he simply left the scene, rather than confront it....so there is no justification for taking violent action unnecessarily. If we place ourselves in harms way for example, walking down dark alleys in a bad area, then we must accept a measure of responsibility ourselves in that case.

But if your personal safety or that of your family is under threat because an intruder(s) has entered your house, circumstances would dictate the action. If the intruder(s) has a gun or a weapon of some sort, and all he wants is money to feed his drug habit, let him take whatever he wants because your life is more valuable than anything he could steal.

If a person is being attacked, you can intervene to the extent possible under the circumstances, but there is no justification for taking a life.....or to intentionally inflict grievous bodily harm unnecessarily...IOW to beat the heck out of someone when all that was necessary was to stop them doing harm to his victim.

This kind of defense is justifiable as long as a Christian is mindful about the sanctity of life. We are not to take the law into our own hands.
For an example we can refer to the nation of Israel and God's laws concerning these kinds of things.

Israel only shed blood with God's sanction in defending their God-given land. How many nations on earth can claim that their land is God-given?
How many lands were stolen from their first nation people after much bloodshed?
Israel lost their land to Gentile domination due to their defection, so God never gave it back to them in spite of the claim that he has. When God blessed his nation they had peace. Israel never has. The mount where the Dome of the Rock stands in Jerusalem today, is fiercely squabbled over by Muslims, Jews and Christians, and has been for many years. But Jesus said that when he returned, no geographical location would be the seat of God's worship.

The Samaritan woman said to Jesus..."Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews." (John 4:19-22)

Jehovah’s law on the sanctity of blood was very explicit. The shedding of human blood polluted the land in which they lived, (where Jehovah said he was residing) and it could be atoned for only by the blood of the one shedding it. (Genesis 9:6-6; Numbers 35:33-34) So, in the case of a murderer, the blood of his victim was avenged and the law of ‘life for life’ was satisfied when the murderer was put to death “without fail” by the avenger of blood. (Exodus 21:23; Numbers 35:21)
The “avenger of blood” was the nearest living male relative of the victim and he had the right to take the life of the one who took the life of his relative. Now, we don’t have this situation in force today, (thankfully) but it highlights the sanctity of life and the value of their lifeblood to God.
So no deliberate murderer was left unpunished, even if it was committed in a fit of anger.

But what about the unintentional manslayer.... for example, someone who killed his brother when the axhead accidentally flew off while he was chopping wood? (Deuteronomy 19:4-5) For such unfortunate ones Jehovah lovingly provided cities of refuge, six of them in various locations, where the accidental manslayer could find protection and asylum from the avenger of blood. (Numbers 35:6-32; Joshua 20:2-9) So even an accidental killing had to be acknowledged and atoned for.
There were no jails in Israel, so this city of refuge was the closest thing they had to incarceration.

But what about warfare....killing on a large scale? What place can a Christian have in the kind of warfare that takes place in modern times where face to face combat is only a small part of it and automatic weapons can cause mass carnage?

It’s interesting that the term “collateral damage” is used to justify those who are innocent victims of the kind of indiscriminate weapons like bombs or missiles that are used widely, and cause major property damage and result in mass killings.

If blood is still sacred to God, as we know it must be, then we have to refer to the teachings of the Christ in that case. I believe that the Christian scriptures I related, provide the answer.

 

[Windmillcharge]

Speaking of the ACW, when the South announced it was leaving the Union, why didn't Lincoln simply say "Okay", instead of starting a war?

Be grateful that he did.
Image America split into two or three compeating states that would through political and economic rivalry fought several wars.

How would America dominated the world? Germany could have won ww2 or Russia could have and dominated all of europe and still be dominating it. While Japan would be ruling its own empire.
What ifs in history depend on far too many biases.

 

[Dropship]

The interesting 1964 film "It Happened Here" looks at an alternate reality if Germany had conquered Britain-

 

[Reggie Belafonte]

The interesting 1964 film "It Happened Here" looks at an alternate reality if Germany had conquered Britain-

View attachment 23952

I did not look at such, but more hype BS I would say.
The real issue between German people and the UK did not exist, but that Russian Communist was the total problem.
Without Communism you would not of got the Nazis.
The German people are much like the UK people. Hitler said such and that's why he did not want to destroy the UK ? The German people had no real problem with the UK people themselves.

But Communism and Nazism was a creation of the hand full of people who control the world and it all worked out to plan, the whole thing went like clockwork and the handful got all what they wanted.

A divided world with two systems that keep the eye off the Birdy ! keep everyone divided and total control over the two party system so as to keep an eye off the Birdy. So hatred and division is inflamed so badly they keep an eye off the Birdy.
That's why they always had to undermine Christianity, because such can expose them truly for what they truly are. They are of this world.
People wonder what is going on ? well Jesus exposed them ! They are of this world ! the art of deceptions and delusions is this world, you must come out from them.

 

[Dropship]

..The German people are much like the UK people. Hitler said such and that's why he did not want to destroy the UK ? The German people had no real problem with the UK people themselves..

Nevertheless, Adolf did try to destroy British cities with his Luftwaffe.
After conquering France he should have left Britain alone and turned his full attention to conquering Russia.
But his biggest mistake was to declare war on America after Pearl Harbor to signify his solidarity with the japs.
That brought America into the war and the rest is history..

 

[Enoch111]

Speaking of the ACW, when the South announced it was leaving the Union, why didn't Lincoln simply say "Okay", instead of starting a war?

That was surely an unnecessary war. It pitted Americans against Americans, led to the deaths of thousands, and in the end resolved nothing. However it destroyed the South and left a bitter aftertaste.

The alternative would have been to sit down and negotiate an agreement which would be fair to all parties, including slave owners, the blacks and Indians. And since the federal government was simultaneously enslaving the Indians on reservations and having the buffalo herds decimated, that was a hypocritical war to begin with. There was no fair negotiation with the Indian tribes either, the treaties were meaningless, and the reservations were essentially worthless.

It seems that politicians are not interested in genuine solutions to real problems. Their primary interest is keeping themselves in office and getting rich off their positions. And the Biden administration -- the worst in American history -- is all about creating as many problems as possible on a daily basis. So why was this criminal "president" not been impeached right at the start, and removed from office along with his clueless VP?

 

[JohnPaul]

The interesting 1964 film "It Happened Here" looks at an alternate reality if Germany had conquered Britain-

View attachment 23952

I have to watch this.

 

[JohnPaul]

Speaking of the ACW, when the South announced it was leaving the Union, why didn't Lincoln simply say "Okay", instead of starting a war?

Because what the South did was illegal, and if President Lincoln let that happened then there would be more States in the future who would want to secede. United We Stand, Divided We Fall.