“The
Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
G.K. Chesterton.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
G.K. Chesterton.
“Forgive
them for they know not what they do”
Luke 23:34
Luke 23:34
Some
will think the following article to be absolutely nuts.
But I am hoping that each of you will read it all the way through and
think as a Christian, not as an American who is also a Christian.
It
seems to me that God gave us a means for defeating the powers of sin and evil
and ever since Christians have had incredible difficulty believing it, much less
acting on it.
Is
there in the cross the power to defeat the powers of darkness?
What do you think?
Read on.
“My
heart goes out to the people of France, especially the residents of Paris. When
faced with such unspeakable violence and barbarism humans cannot help but
experience a visceral loss of our sense of security. The fear resulting from
such a loss can send us straight into our limbic system, and it’s fight,
flight, or freeze. America came out fighting. Will France have the discipline to
choose an alternative response?
In
the wake of 9/11 theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas pointed out that
President Bush and American leaders made a massive tactical mistake in terms of
the language they
used to describe the attacks. They called it an act of war. But it wasn’t war.
It was murder.
I
see the leaders of France making the same mistake. This was not an act of war,
this was cold blooded murder. Those who planned and executed the attacks are not
warriors. They are murderers. The moment you call an act of terrorism an act of
war you give the perpetrators of such violence exactly what they want. You
elevate them to a status far beyond what they deserve.
This
was not an act of war. This was an act of murder, and great nations don’t go
to war because of murder.
Turning
a plane load of civilians into a smart bomb is not an act of war, it’s an
act of lunacy. Turning the peaceful public sporting events, concerts, and
restaurants into bloodbaths is not act of war, it is an act of madness. When
Americans adopted the language of war in order to describe the hijacking of
airplanes and flying them fully fueled and loaded with people into buildings, we
normalized that behavior, categorizing it as collateral damage in this horrific
thing we call war.
I
beg the people of France not to make the same mistake America did. When America
adopted the language of war it initiated not one, but two wars at the cost of
trillions of dollars and untold lives, not to mention a massive financial
recession. The major result of those wars was the creation of ISIS, the
organization now taking credit for planning and executing the violence in Paris.
Our strategy of war has not been very effective in terms of quelling global
terrorism, and it has eroded all of the goodwill we experienced after 9/11.
Call
terrorism an act of war and you unwittingly surrender the high ground. Call it
murder, and you name these acts and their perpetrators much more accurately.
Call it murder and you can still promise to hunt down the murderers and bring
them to justice, but this time you can say: we
refuse to stoop to your level. We could bomb you into oblivion but we won't,
because we’re better than that. We will not become murderers like you. We
refuse to seek revenge and retribution, and the world will see our true colors.
We promise to bring these murderers to justice, but we refuse to join the
ranks of ordinary nations by acting rashly.
Nations have
already begun to rain down bombs in response to the violence in Paris. If
you continue down this road and let slip the dogs of war I can promise
two things will happen.
First,
you will find out that going to war with radical Islam will not make
you safer, and it will not make you happy. You may get a momentary buzz of
actually doing something in response, but the euphoria will be replaced by
the cries of mourning as your sons and daughters are lost to
war. War will never satisfy the longing you have right now, because what you
long for is peace, and the road to peace only comes through forgiveness.
Second,
you will find that once you go down the road of war with radical Islam, you
cannot control the outcomes. You can have the most powerful military, the
best strategy, the greatest leaders, and the most virtuous intentions in
the world, and you still won’t be able to determine outcomes to your
satisfaction. War in the Middle East will always go sideways because the West has
more to lose. Desperate poverty makes for a dangerous enemy. Those who fight
wars on terror will invest more and more money, relational capital, and
lives with very little to show for it in the end. The only way to vanquish
this enemy is to make them a friend. If France will have the imagination and
discipline to pursue peace with as much creativity and vigor as the U.S.
pursued war, they may well lead the way to a better future.
Compared
to France, America is still a relatively young nation. We made the mistake of
youth. We responded to our tragedy by calling it war instead of murder. Maybe,
if we had the discipline to call it murder, we would have more quickly heeded
the wisdom of leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. who said,
“Through
violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through
violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through
violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence.
Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.”
To
the people of France I say: you have the benefit of maturity and many
more centuries of experience. I urge you not to make the mistake of
youth. Don’t call it war. Call it murder. Don’t try to murder murder. The
only way forward is for France to do what America was unable to do: find the
high road, and take it. Find a way to forgive. If you don’t, you only have
yourselves to blame. If you do, you will prove yourselves to be a great nation.
*You
can learn more about the author of this article at TimSuttle.com
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