With wars constantly in the news, it is good to reflect on the biblical ethics of conflict.
Old Testament
In the Old Testament, one of the Ten Commandments was, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). The conundrum is that in the Old Testament there was the death penalty, and the kings of Israel went to war, although the Levites who served at the Temple were exempt (Numbers 1:49). Some people see this commandment as simply referring to murder, but others take it literally and see it as condemning the killing of all people, including in war and capital punishment. Although wars took place, Isaiah looks forward to a future without warfare when “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4, RSV). In Isaiah, it is written that the coming Messiah will be called the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
Jesus
Jesus famously said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Later in the same chapter, he said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44). For many Christians, loving your enemies is incompatible with killing them. The example of Jesus is that he never opposed the occupying Roman forces and, in fact, rebuked Peter for trying to resist them, even at the cost of crucifixion (Matthew 26:51–52 and John 18:10–11).
New Testament epistles
St Paul wrote that we should “live peaceably with all men” and went on to write, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head,” and he exhorted us to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:18–21, KJV). In Hebrews, it says, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy” (Hebrews 12:14). Although Paul writes about spiritual warfare and the armour of God, he never talks about physical warfare.
Early Church
In the early centuries, some Christians served in the Roman army, and some people in the Roman army came to Christ. Justin Martyr advocated non-violence, but St Augustine developed the “just war” theory. The problem with “just war theory” is that it can sometimes be difficult to define a just war when there are rights and wrongs on both sides. Jesus also condemned the Pharisees for manmade doctrines (Mark 7:6–13).
So-called “holy wars”
Throughout history, people of different faiths have declared so-called “holy wars”, but there is nothing holy about war, and declaring a war “holy” does not mean God has to support it. Rather, falsely invoking God to support war is breaking the third commandment by misusing his name and taking it in vain (Exodus 20:7). Sometimes people claim that religion has caused many wars, but it is hard to name many, if any, conflicts which have the Christian faith as a root cause - certainly not the two World Wars. Wars are seldom religious, although religion has often been hijacked as a rallying call to fight a political or nationalistic agenda. For most Christians, the medieval Crusades are now an embarrassing part of Church history.
British pacifism
The Lollards, who were a pre-Reformation evangelical movement in England, did not agree with war and believed that invoking God’s name to justify war was blasphemous. British pacifism really dates to the English Civil War, when some Christians were disturbed that Puritans and traditional Anglicans were fighting each other. After the Civil War, the Quakers embraced pacifism with the Peace Testimony of 1660, in which they sought to assure Charles II of their renunciation of all “fighting with outward weapons whatsoever”. This was recognised by the Militia Ballot Act of 1757, which allowed Quakers to be excluded from military service.
European pacifism
Some peace churches developed in continental Europe, especially in militaristic Germany. The most well-known are the Mennonites, the Amish, the Hutterites, and the Bruderhof. These communities were persecuted by governments because they refused to be recruited into the military. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, huge numbers of these people emigrated to the USA to escape persecution, only to live through the American Civil War, when many of them felt compelled to move again, and many went to Canada.
Pacifism in the US
Just as the English Civil War (1642–51) led the Quakers to adopt pacifism, two centuries later the American Civil War (1861–65) had a similar effect in the US. The Christadelphians adopted the pacifist position in 1864, as did the Seventh-day Adventists in 1867. During the Great War, many members of the International Bible Student Association (IBSA) fought in the war, but in the 1930s, now renamed as Jehovah’s Witnesses, they refused to take part in military service because of their adherence to political neutrality.
Conflicts of ethics
St Paul wrote in Romans that Christians should submit themselves to the law of the land (Romans 13:1–7). The limit for Christians is that, as St Peter and the apostles said to the Sanhedrin, “We must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29, NLT). There is sometimes a conflict of ethics and principles between obeying the government and living in peace with others. In this space of ethical conflict, some Christians have felt it was right to fight in some wars, such as the Second World War, and Jesus said that “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), which appears on many war memorials. At the same time, many Christians from across Christian traditions were conscientious objectors in the UK and the US.
Non-violent movements
After the Second World War, there were some successful examples of change being made not by fighting but by non-violence. Mahatma Gandhi in India was from a Hindu background but greatly admired the person of Jesus. He practised and encouraged non-violent opposition, which helped lead to Indian independence in 1947. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus, Martin Luther King advocated non-violence to oppose segregation in the US in the 1960s. Likewise, Nelson Mandela, who was from the Methodist tradition, advocated non-violence to oppose apartheid in South Africa and later advocated forgiveness and reconciliation.
Final thoughts
Christians follow the Prince of Peace, who told people to “love your enemies”. While Christians should be willing to die for their faith, that is quite different from being willing to kill for it.
