Four ways to strive for justice

Tony Gonzales is a US Navy veteran and, as of Tuesday, April 14th, a former member of the US House of Representatives. He resigned. As of Tuesday, Eric Swalwell is also a former member of the US House of Representatives. He also stepped down.

One is a Republican, the other is a Democrat. But the reason why each of them stepped down transcends political parties or policy, and that’s my point today. We should not choose representatives as though they were robots, selecting or deselecting policies, but as moral agents and models—people we believe exemplify the character of a good American citizen.

Politicians don’t need to be perfect. The ballots would be blank if they did. Nevertheless, given the heated, divisive political climate of the states, I’ll argue character is even more important, not less.

Tony Gonzales’ adultery 

Let’s cover the fallout of Gonzales’ failings first. He represented Texas’s 23rd congressional district for five years and has a family with six kids. Gonzales committed adultery with a political aide named Regina Santos-Aviles. Her life fell apart when her husband found out.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales resign from Congress →

For most of Christian history, followers of Christ have turned to Augustine for guidance on what constitutes a just war. Over the course of his writings, the Church Father listed seven criteria that a conflict must meet to be morally valid:

• Just cause: A defensive war, fought only to resist aggression.
• Just intent: A war fought to secure justice, not for revenge, conquest, or money.
• Last resort: All other attempts to resolve the conflict have clearly failed.
• Legitimate authority: Military force is authorized by the proper governmental powers.
• Limited goals: Is the war’s purpose achievable, and can it end in a just peace?
• Proportionality: The good gained must justify the harm done.
• Noncombatant immunity: Civilians must be protected as far as is humanly possible.

How many of these boxes does the war in Iran check?

Checking boxes

The case for just cause revolves primarily around the idea that, in a world where attacks often come without notice, a defensive war is as much about preventing a fight from starting as protecting oneself after it does. The fear of what Iran would do if it ever got a nuclear weapon—something Iranian envoys reportedly claimed to be able to achieve in a matter of weeks prior to the war beginning—has been cited repeatedly by various members of the Trump administration to justify the war.

What about just intent? We’ll discuss this idea more when we get to the portion about limited goals, but the short version is that some of the reasons given by the Trump administration would fit under this justification, while others—the threats to take their oil, for example—muddy the waters a bit. At the end of the day, the war could check this box, but it’s not quite as clear-cut as some of the others.

The last resort piece of the puzzle depends largely on whether you believe further negotiations with Iran prior to when bombs began to drop at the end of February would have accomplished anything beyond giving Iran more time to prepare. Again, it’s debatable.

Regarding the question of legitimate authority, Paul is clear that governments have the authority to wage war so long as that war is justified (Romans 13:4). In fact, he goes so far as to say that those who lead nations in this capacity act as “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” And while that thinking could easily be taken too far—and is, again, based on the idea that the war is just and its targets wrongdoers under the judgment of God—the argument can at least be made in favor of the US government meeting this criterion as well.

Proportionality is difficult to assess in the moment. If the good gained is a non-nuclear Iran governed by a person or group of people that will not massacre tens of thousands of its citizens, then that would probably check the box.

Noncombatant immunity must be assessed as much by intent as practice, particularly when one party is prone to using civilians as shields. The tragic deaths of 175 people at a school, as well as the hundreds (if not thousands) of civilians that have died in other attacks, serve as a powerful reminder that complete protection in this kind of fight is not possible. It does appear, though, that the United States has attempted to take precautions to prevent such mistakes where it can, even if there is certainly room to do better.

And so we come to the final element of this examination with the understanding that you can at least make an argument that the other criteria have been met. You can also argue to the contrary, but it’s less clear-cut than either side might prefer to believe.

But what of the limited goals requirement? Is a just peace achievable for those in power on the American side?

Why are we fighting this war?

Complaints about how the Trump administration has framed its rationale for the war proliferated across both sides of the political aisle. And, at least in this regard, the administration has no one to blame but itself.

As Ross Douthat described:

One could argue that the war is just because it’s trying to remove a wicked government. Except that at present Mr. Trump wants to say that it isn’t a war for regime change, that he’s happy to cut a deal that wouldn’t require the clerical elite to give up power, let alone face justice for their crimes.

Or one could say that the war is just because it’s a limited intervention focused on forestalling an Iranian military threat. But Mr. Trump and his secretary of defense have repeatedly threatened a more sweeping campaign, with back-to-the-stone-age bombing and civilizational destruction, which no just war theory could countenance.

Or one could say that the American war is just because it’s focused on military targets, which is separate from the more morally questionable Israeli campaign of assassination. But come on — they’re the same war!

The truth is that there are valid reasons—both from a biblical and a political perspective—to support the war with Iran. But the problem is that Christians are the ones who have, to this point, been required to make that argument when the justification should have come from President Trump and his administration.

While they have tried to offer some rationale, far too often their explanations come across as if they are simply throwing the reasons against the wall to see what sticks.

Had the war ended as quickly as the attack in Venezuela, perhaps that would have been fine. However, the fact that the majority of their arguments have been offered after Iran weathered the initial storm supports the idea that the attempts at justification were more of an afterthought than their true motivation.

How to pray

So, when it comes to the question of whether the war in Iran is just, I’m honestly not sure. There are reasons to argue that it is, but it’s impossible to know to what degree the Trump administration is truly motivated by them. We can—and should—pray that they are, but to say either way with any degree of certainty is unwise.

Fortunately, whether the war is just or unjust, we serve a God who can still bring good from this conflict. So, let’s finish by taking some time to pray and ask him to do just that.

Pray that the Trump administration would pursue this war for reasons God can bless and that the end result of the fighting would be a safer, more stable Iran. Pray that God will protect the people in Iran—both the civilians and soldiers. And pray that God will work through Christians in Iran to help others place their faith in Jesus and embrace the hope that only he can give.

Let’s start now.

Denison Forum

Yom HaShoah and the solidarity of our souls

Next to my baptism and wedding vows, the most moving two minutes of my life came years ago when I stood next to a bus alongside a highway. I was leading a study tour in Israel, making our way toward Ben Gurion Airport for our flight home.

Suddenly, sirens sounded. My first thought was that the nation was under attack. But it was not, at least not in the sense I feared.

The date was April 14, otherwise known as Yom HaShoah, the day each year when Israelis remember the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. Across the country, everything stops. Vehicles on the road pull over, as ours did, and their occupants stand outside. Jobs, schools, and all other activities cease. For two minutes, the entire nation pauses in remembrance of those who perished in the worst atrocity in Jewish history.

I can think of nothing analogous to this in American experience. Even with regard to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, we do not all stop on a single day at a single moment to remember those who perished.

Nothing else happens with Yom HaShoah except what I have described. No actions are taken; no laws are passed; nothing substantive occurs in these moments to deter future holocausts. Many Israelis are highly secular and do not even pray during these two minutes.

Why, then, was remembering people who have been dead for more than eighty years so moving for me? Why did the Israelis on our bus have tears in their eyes? Why does an entire nation stop like this every year, without fail?

And why, after Yom HaShoah is over for another year, am I still remembering it as if it were yesterday?

As if their loved ones had perished

In The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy, historian Susan Wise Bauer brilliantly illustrates one way the past shapes the present and predicts the future. We remember pandemics of earlier times so as to prevent them from recurring and to prepare if they do. The collective history of human sickness is a primer on avoiding and coping with sickness today.

In this sense, remembering Holocaust victims is an exercise in present-tense self-preservation, a way for Jewish people to call to mind the historic reality of antisemitism and find renewed stimulus to combat it.

But I sensed that there was something more in the hearts of the Israelis as they stopped that day. They genuinely felt themselves to be in solidarity with those who were murdered and those who grieve those who died. It was as if their own loved ones had perished, and they were pausing to internalize such suffering and make it their own.

For many of them, this is true. Given the fact that the Holocaust killed approximately one-third of the global Jewish population at the time, a large percentage of Jews today had ancestors who perished at the hands of the Nazis.

But there was even more going on as the sirens sounded. A sense of collective grief, resolve, and pride in their people and nation was tangible.

The historic and global solidarity of the Jews as a people, on clear display that day, goes a long way toward explaining their survival and flourishing across four millennia.

“All the families of the earth shall be blessed”

No race has been so persecuted as the Jews, from slavery in Egypt to crematoriums at Auschwitz to October 7 and the antisemitic reaction it illogically spurred. And yet no race has contributed so much to humanity.

For example, while the Jews comprise only 0.2 percent of the global population, they have been awarded 22 percent of all Nobel Prizes.

God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants continues to be kept every day: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). We are not required to agree with everything the leaders of modern-day Israel do, but we can marvel at the perseverance and contributions of their people.

Such solidarity starts early. A Jewish father is his children’s first rabbi; the home is their first synagogue. The Shabbat (the Sabbath) and other Jewish rules and traditions permeate every day and area of their lives, not just their religious activities. And their shared connection with Jews of all nations and languages who keep the same rules and follow the same traditions infuses them with a sense of community that transcends their present challenges, no matter how difficult.

Such solidarity is one of the many lessons I treasure from more than thirty pilgrimages to the Holy Land over these many years. And one I encourage you to embrace with me today.

Taking a coal from the fire

In contrast with the communal worldview of historic Judaism, the individualism and existentialism of the West permeates our culture and thinking. America was founded on the principle of individual liberty; even the colonies that united to win independence from England struggled to stay united as a collective nation.

Here is where Christianity can bring unity amid diversity, transcending our divisions and transforming our future.

Regarding the individual: As Jesus stated, we must each be “born again” (John 3:7). No one can trust in Christ for us. Faith cannot be transmitted genetically or handed down generationally. We will each stand individually before Jesus one day (2 Corinthians 5:10). We each experience a personal relationship with God that is uniquely ours.

Regarding the collective: We are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). We are members of a collective body (1 Corinthians 12:27), branches of a single vine (John 15:1–8), children of a single Father (John 1:12) who will spend eternity as part of a “great multitude” in the presence of the Almighty (Revelation 7:9).

Here’s the problem: American evangelicalism is typically weighted far more toward the former than the latter. We emphasize the urgency of personal salvation (as we should) so fully that we do less to engage saved souls in the larger family and story of faith.

But if you take a coal from the fire, it goes out. If you sever a branch from the vine, the branch dies.

“So that the world may know”

Just as humans were created for community (Genesis 2:18), Christians are intended to do life together. We are instructed to pray for each other (James 5:16), to forgive each other (Colossians 3:13), to “serve one another” (1 Peter 4:10), and to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2).

To these ends:

• For whom are you praying today? Who is praying for you?
• Whom are you forgiving today? Who is forgiving you?
• Whom are you serving today? Who is serving you?
• Whose burdens are you bearing today? Who is bearing yours?

Yom HaShoah is a powerful reminder to pray daily for the “peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) in these war-torn days. It is a powerful encouragement to love the Jewish people as God does and to pray and work for them to know their Messiah as their Lord.

And it is an invitation to imitate their solidarity by modeling Christian unity for a divided and divisive culture.

Dwight Moody observed, “I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.” Conversely, Jesus prayed that his followers “may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23).

I believe Jesus is praying for our unity even now (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25).

How will you answer his prayer today?

Denison Forum