holy wars?

[uncleauberon]

These days the Pope does not have the temporal authority to ask us to physically fight a War.

Even at the time of the Crusades each Knight moved by the Pope’s appeal had to get “leave” of his “Lord”. Knights and their cohort armies were considered Vassals of the secular nobility.

A brief study of the Crusades would reveal that while the Popes asked for help they really didn’t exercise any authority to actually “send” people into war or direct how it was waged.

The 4th Crusade actions at Constantinople were condemmed by the Pope.

The same would be today where we would have to go as representatives of secular authority.

We can participate in a legitimate war under a legitamate authority, such as the United States Government. We can join the Army.

 

[Anduril11623]

Well, we heed the Pope in other matters, so if there was a call to arms, why would we not heed him as well in such a matter?

However, we are also bound by secular authority and there doesn’t seem to be much interest in labeling the clash of cultures, as such – being the myth that all cultures can coexist peacefully and with a little capitalism and democracy, there won’t be any more bad people in the world. I would’ve thought two weeks of French riots, subway bombings in England and Spain, and assassinations in Holland would’ve sparked some interest in national survival…but it doesn’t seem that way.

Bottom line, yes, I would fight. I do not believe that Jesus would want parents to watch their children be slaughtered or enslaved.

Anduril

 

[Black_Jaque]

Jesus said not to fight physically for him.

Of course. It wouldn’t be for Him that a holy war was fought. It would be for us, or for our fellow christians, that we could enjoy the right to worship Him.

 

[Anduril11623]

Of course. It wouldn’t be for Him that a holy war was fought. It would be for us, or for our fellow christians, that we could enjoy the right to worship Him.

That seems to be the crucial distinction lost in the debate over violence done by Christians, especially with regard to the Crusades.

Anduril

 

[ssejllenrad]

Unless the fight is non-violent, I say let them supress us! This is just earth. Not heaven! I will not resort to violence… We may not be freely practicing the faith but to die for it will be much more of a joy than killing for it. Waaay more! Just remember the pre-Constantine Christians. They died for their faith… For the Lord…

 

[EBSSTF4]

I understand what you are saying. But, the question always remains–how much is too much to endure? What if Catholics had banded together just before WWII to fight against Hitler? Not all taking to the streets with weapons in hand, perhaps, but at least in putting pressure on the German government?

You can put pressure on a government, you can defeat a government. Only changing the society that produces them can defeat terrorists. When their actions become unacceptable, they will stop.

I often hear this WWII comparison, but Hitler was not a terrorist. He was the leader of a country. With a country you have a goal, surrender. With terrorists the only way to stop them with violence is to kill all of them. That is not possible, the more you kill, the worse life gets, the more join the cause.

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
Monday, 13 January 2003

“NO TO WAR”! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between States, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences.

I will simply add today, faced with the constant degeneration of the crisis in the Middle East, that the solution will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution. And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than twelve years of embargo? War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations.

 

[Neo_Canaan]

I don’t wanna kill people, it only denies them any hope of repentance. Life is God’s and Jesus’ alone. And we must NOT play God and Jesus.

 

[Black_Jaque]

Unless the fight is non-violent, I say let them supress us! This is just earth. Not heaven! I will not resort to violence… We may not be freely practicing the faith but to die for it will be much more of a joy than killing for it. Waaay more! Just remember the pre-Constantine Christians. They died for their faith… For the Lord…

Life isn’t always so black-n-white. If in the situation of the Maccabbees then this is the right attitude. However, sometimes suppression means taking your children away from you, and when you see your children again - they are no longer Christian. For that I will kill, and I will keep killing until my children are back in my home, or I am dead. Just as sure as you can look at a woman’s body and see that it is built to nuture young children, you can see in a man’s body that it is built to stand in Satan’s way.

 

[Neo_Canaan]

Unless the fight is non-violent, I say let them supress us! This is just earth. Not heaven! I will not resort to violence… We may not be freely practicing the faith but to die for it will be much more of a joy than killing for it. Waaay more! Just remember the pre-Constantine Christians. They died for their faith… For the Lord…

Well said!! Would Jesus drop an H Bomb on the world? Not on your life!! It WAS Jesus that said, “Those that live by the sword, die by the sword.”

 

[Neo_Canaan]

Life isn’t always so black-n-white. If in the situation of the Maccabbees then this is the right attitude. However, sometimes suppression means taking your children away from you, and when you see your children again - they are no longer Christian. For that I will kill, and I will keep killing until my children are back in my home, or I am dead. Just as sure as you can look at a woman’s body and see that it is built to nuture young children, you can see in a man’s body that it is built to stand in Satan’s way.

No, NEVER. I have no children, and even so, I would NEVER want those that murder, get mudered, it’s a sign of revenge, and revenge NEVER brings back those you lost AT ALL. Two wrongs never make a right. Remember–“and they shalt beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shalt not lift a sword against nation, and study war no me.” Also, St. John said in the new heven & earth, there would be no death and no war. by the by, you sound like a woman’s sole function is to give birth, nuttin’ else. And that males were the stronger gender, that only males can make choices and fight as u call it.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

If changing a poopy diaper can be a form of prayer, then shooting a bad-guy can be too.

As I posted in another thread, honest to goodness, there have been times when I felt a sense of peace when I made a decision to fight for something.

The kind of peace Christ brought to the world was not the kind that Barney the Dinosaur brings. Christ brought a peace that you experience amidst war and chaos. Barney’s peace is destroyed by war and chaos, Christ’s peace outlives war and chaos.

Now, Rob’s Wife, can you somehow blend your imaginary scenario into the Just War principles? I would not join a war just because the Pope ordered us to do so, unless he said this as an ex-cathedra statement, binding all the faithful yadda-yadda. But if the order were only directed at the male 1/2 of the faithful I would suspect this order could be fallible.

If the pope made it clear the his plea for arms fit the just causes for war, I would join. Blasting people because they are muslim wouldn’t be just. Blasting people hell-bent on stopping me from worshipping God is a worthy cause.

Would you mind sending my wife a note that I should immediately increase the amount of practice time I spend at the shooting range? It sure would help if she could see this as more than a self-indulging hobby.

Black Jaque:

I’ve read much of what the Islamists have said and written, and I’ve seen what they did at Beslan. I know the Israeli commander whose commandos had to deal with the Palestinian terrorists attack on an Israeli school in the 1970’s.

Take your wife with you to the range and teach her to shoot. Tell her that’s a requirement to be a schoolteacher in Israel. It’s not a selfish habit if you’re practicing so you can protect your family and others in your community.

A Jewish sage once said that those who refused to protect their families and communities were no better than than infidels. You might take a look at Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. jpfo.org/

I’ll post links on some of what the Islamist Extremists have been saying in another post.

Your Bother in Christ, Michael

 

[Liberalsaved]

If I can have a sword. Always wanted a sword.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Well said!! Would Jesus drop an H Bomb on the world? Not on your life!! It WAS Jesus that said, “Those that live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Neo Canaan:

I suggest you take a look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah which describe what God actually did two too cities. The Hebrew Word we translate “Overthrow” carries the meaning of total destruction. Then, you need to read the Exodus account which describes what God did to force a ruler to free God’s people from slavery to his empire, and what God did to him and his army when they insisted on trying to chase them down.

And, you would do well to study the history of Judah and Israel, and the final sack of Jerusalem in 67 A.D. In all of these, the Prophets of God called these armies the instruments of God, and the same holds true for Cyrus of Persia whose conquest of Babylon enabled the return of the Jews to Judea. You’ll need to read the background to understand this, but God doesn’t change.

After you’ve done that, I suggest you study the history of the USA and the line between Slavery and the Civil War, John Brown’s prophecy on December 2, 1859: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” John Brown

And Abraham Lincoln’s remarks during his 2nd Inaugaral March 4, 1865:

*If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? …

Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

President Abraham Lincoln*

When you’re finished with all of that, Answer this, what ended the Holocaust? What discredited Facism, Nazism and Japanese Imperialism? What finally brought down Communism and ended the Cold War? And, what freed Afghanistan from Islamic Extremists and Iraq from a Totalitarian Dictator who had girls gang-raped and children tortured to death?

The Church has explcitly taught Just War Doctrine for over 1,600 years and has allowed Christians to serve in the Armed forces for longer than that.

Our doctrine isn’t just felt. It’s also thought through, and we don’t base it on one Scripture when there is a body of Scripture that could contradict a given interpretation.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Neo_Canaan]

Neo Canaan:

I suggest you take a look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah which describe what God actually did two too cities. The Hebrew Word we translate “Overthrow” carries the meaning of total destruction. Then, you need to read the Exodus account which describes what God did to force a ruler to free God’s people from slavery to his empire, and what God did to him and his army when they insisted on trying to chase them down.

And, you would do well to study the history of Judah and Israel, and the final sack of Jerusalem in 67 A.D. In all of these, the Prophets of God called these armies the instruments of God, and the same holds true for Cyrus of Persia whose conquest of Babylon enabled the return of the Jews to Judea. You’ll need to read the background to understand this, but God doesn’t change.

After you’ve done that, I suggest you study the history of the USA and the line between Slavery and the Civil War, John Brown’s prophecy on December 2, 1859: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” John Brown

And Abraham Lincoln’s remarks during his 2nd Inaugaral March 4, 1865:

*If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? …

Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

President Abraham Lincoln*

When you’re finished with all of that, Answer this, what ended the Holocaust? What discredited Facism, Nazism and Japanese Imperialism? What finally brought down Communism and ended the Cold War? And, what freed Afghanistan from Islamic Extremists and Iraq from a Totalitarian Dictator who had girls gang-raped and children tortured to death?

The Church has explcitly taught Just War Doctrine for over 1,600 years and has allowed Christians to serve in the Armed forces for longer than that.

Our doctrine isn’t just felt. It’s also thought through, and we don’t base it on one Scripture when there is a body of Scripture that could contradict a given interpretation.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

War can’t give, nor save life, it can ONLY take it away.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

War can’t give, nor save life, it can ONLY take it away.

Neo:

How many Jews and others do you think the Nazis would have murdered if people like my father hadn’t invaded Nazi Germany?

You do understand that Hitler planned to slaughter ever Jew on the planet and then every Christian on the planet, long with several other groups of people? Don’t you? Or did you never learn that?

If we would not have stopped the slaughter, you can get Hitler would have followed through on his promise. Since you are unwilling to go to war, how would you have saved these tens of millins of innocent people from the evil Nazis?

I used to know several survivors of the Bataan Death March. One of them carried another on his shoulders while his “buddies” screened the Japanese so they wouldn’t use the two for bayonet drill. If they would have been found out, the whole lot would have been used for bayonet drill.

Less than 2/3 survived the captivity as the Japanese didn’t believe in niceties such as the Geneva Convention. If we hadn’t freed them, they would have all died. Since you are unwilling to go to war, how would you have saved the lives of these men the Japanese were working to death and planned to kill?

The slaves freed by the Civil War comprised over half the population of the South. Freeing the slaves in America forced many other countries to abolish slavery. Since you’re unwilling to go to war, how would you have freed the slaves and ended slavery as an institution?

FYI, you have your chance in Sudan and Northern Africa since Muslims have brought that wretched institution back.

And, you should know that most of my friends are Israeli Jews. These are people who have to fight to protect themselves and their families, or the Arabs would follow through on their often stated (mostly in Arabic) promises to “drive them into the Sea” and annihilate them all.

And, how would you protect the lives of my friends, many of whom are Death Camp survivors or the children of Death Camp Survivors from people who cll them “pigs and apes” in their religious services?

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Neo_Canaan]

I would rather use nonlethal and nonviolent methods to stop such shenanigans. I RUFUSE to play God and Jesus and end their lives and deny them a chance to repent. Taking a life, regardless, denies a person a chance to repent. And human life in the lord’s only to take. My mind’s made up.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

I would rather use nonlethal and nonviolent methods to stop such shenanigans. I RUFUSE to play God and Jesus and end their lives and deny them a chance to repent. Taking a life, regardless, denies a person a chance to repent. And human life in the lord’s only to take. My mind’s made up.

Neo:

Then you have decided to ignore the repeated testimony of Sacred Scripture and the Church Fathers, and you have decided to set your own opinion above the teaching of the Church, and you have decided that how you feel is more important than the lives of the innocent people the evil people you refuse to fight actually murder.

I remind you of the Clock Tower at Texas University. The only way the killing stopped and the lives of the people in the Quad below were saved was that a Dallas Police Officer went up the tower and killed the madman who was slaughtering the innocent people and those who were trying to rescue them in the quad below.

If your mind was made up, then why did you come to a thread where contrary evidence and logic would be presented that would demonstrate that you’ve not really thought this through or thought through the implications of your decision?

Your Brother in Christ, Mchael

 

[Exalt]

If Christians do literally fight for thier faith, they should be fighting for the free rights of all people to practice thier religion or spirituality (or lack thereof). To fight for a purely Christian state is no better than Muslims fighting for a purely Muslim state.

With that said, so often we forget the great Christian paradox: love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. Pray for those who persecute you. Christ calls us to not use violence, but show our love as a testiment to our strength and faith. I know, I know, it doesn’t make sense. Well, look at it this way, why didn’t the early Christians create an underground army and literally fight against Rome? They understood the power of this paradox. For Christians, to win is to fail. Christ’s salvation came through death. God’s glory came through a lowly man. It makes perfect sense in the light of this Great Paradox that we ought to lay down our weapons and open our arms.

At least, I don’t think Jesus would pick up an AK-47. He could have picked up a spear and killed the Romans trying to kill him, but he didn’t. He picked up his cross. And, I might remind you, he told us to do the same.

Peace… It’s so odd these days to actually think of it as including the absence of violence…

 

[Hastrman]

What everyone seems to forget when quoting “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,” is who Jesus was speaking to. Peter was to be the first Pope, the first High Priest of the new Israel. A priest may not be a shedder of blood.

Ah, but the layman…he may be called upon to shed blood. This is the teaching of the Church. Now, if nuclear weapons come into play, then a war may involve too much collateral damage to be justifiable. But if they don’t, especially with recent advances such as artillery shells that can be steered (currently in the experimental stages), Just War is possible.

If I hear one more person say revenge cannot bring back the dead, I will chew my own foot off in sheer frustration…after punching them squarely in the nose, if at all possible. What person who takes revenge ever thought it would? Revenge is designed to punish the one who has done wrong, not to bring back their victim. You may claim we don’t have the right to punish anyone, but you are drawing ludicrous, unphilosophic distinctions between kinds of punishment. If someone’s crime warrants death, and some crimes do, obviously I have the right to kill him, unless I also don’t have the right to take away his liberty or property, either, if his crime should warrant those, instead. That is part of the responsibility of democracy: every man in prison was put there by me, and you, and every other person who does not entirely deny the legitimacy of government as such.

Finally, if I have the right to kill in self-defense (which I believe English law currently denies), I have the right to kill in defense of others. The state, therefore, has the right to wage war in defense of its constituents. Yes, I know that the death itself cannot be the goal in self-defense killing, but death is not the goal on a battlefield, either. Removing enemy combatants as a threat, by whatever means necessary, is.

 

[EBSSTF4]

Matthew 5:38-42

38"You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Does anyone recall how the Apostles died?

I don’t recall them taking up swords. Their deaths strengthened the Church.