:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I’m smack in the midst of hammering out a series of posts on the book of Romans, but I’ve had something nagging at me for the past few days. I figured I should just say it so I can move on with my other blogging projects.

Many Christians, especially my evangelical camp, don’t talk about war enough.

While we may discuss the latest conflict in the news, I don’t think we do enough critical and biblical engagement with the ramifications of war and the extent to which we approve of war. In addition, I don’t think we even know enough about WHY we don’t critically reflect on war.

In reading Mark Knoll’s The Rise of Evangelicalism, I was struck with the way evangelicals in particular wed the American Revolution to Christianity. Great Britain was seen as a tyrant and tyranny was opposed to the republican ideals that had been linked with the Gospel. In other words, the freedom of the Gospel was directly tied in with the freedom of state. Democracy became part of the Christian “package” and so many took up arms to defend both (see pages 186-187).

Therefore, from the very beginning of our country we have linked the expansion of democracy with the Gospel, and therefore have been able to justify war as a means to preserve both.

Perhaps directly linked to this ideology that has taken hold in America, there are many honorable Christians serving in the military. And so it becomes very difficult to discuss the morality of war when so many families in our congregations are directly affected by such conflicts.

Another factor worth examining is the extent to which our economy is driven by defense spending. With nearly half of the federal budget given to defense spending or defense discretionary spending (and don’t forget spending on “overseas contingency operations”), there are many Christians working for companies with large military contracts.

See the yellow and red sections eating up about 40% of our expenses? That’s our defense spending. Of course, digging up budgets is tricky business because they sometimes don’t include the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I dug up some documents on the 2009 budget and roughly half of that budget involves defense spending.

If we cut that section of our budget in half, think of all the high tech jobs, university research contracts, and businesses serving military bases that would zip down the tubes. That isn’t to say that all defense spending is bad, only that our economy is quite dependent on it, thus making it difficult to call our spending on weapons, which outstrips every other nation by a long shot, into question.

And so Christians in America link the preservation of democracy with the Gospel, and in some cases we either serve in the military or depend on military spending for our income. These factors, among others that I’m surely missing, make it difficult to discuss war in our congregations. We don’t want to send the wrong message to our troops, we don’t want to undermine the possibility of democracy spreading, and we don’t want to upset those in our congregations with close ties to the military in general. All of these factors make it difficult for Christians to discuss war.

Tomorrow I hope to continue with my study of Romans, but I’d also like to take a look at why Christians need to talk about war. Stay tuned.