LT,
I was referring in the first place to events in Sarajewo in 1914. The whole sequence of events may have been stopped there and then by non-aggressive means. As far as Hitler is concerned, Europe looked the other way when he rearmed in the thirties. The reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 was a pivotal moment then imo. What I am saying is that “national feeling” justified war for the German nation and the individual German soldiers just the same. The “just war” thing can be used by both sides – to start a war as well. An unjust system does not produce just wars. I am approaching the subject from the perspective of preventative policies instead of actual military action when push comes to shove. This is where Christian morals could be focusing on more. But in the end the key question to answer here, without hiding behind convenient morals, is when an individual Christian can or even should take action.
I am not genuinely suggesting that, in the end, in the real world, the Allies had a non-aggressive alternative that didn't involve acceding to foreign dictatorship and eventual ethnic cleansing. So yes, pacifism can only exist by virtue of those that fight to protect it. A true pacifist will in the end give up his/her life by not interfering and perhaps leaving others to suffer perhaps more than they would through war – who knows? IMO, Rwanda only served to demonstrate that politics did NOT override either genuine or misplaced "altruism": no military peacekeeping force prevented the slaughter. I think pacifism is an overly idealistic and unworkable thing to hide behind. So no, I am not a pacifist and have to accept we live in an unjust world with which we just have to make do. As far as a Christian’s position is concerned, it depends on determining what his/her place and purpose is in “this world”, and where to draw the line with the other “Kingdom”. Within that position you either reject only overtly unjust wars based on your individual conscience, or you reject all wars, leaving you with the problem of essentially turning into a pacifist on the macro level, otherwise having to determine where to draw the line as far as self-defense is concerned on a more personal level.
VG
Van Gogh
JoinedPosts by Van Gogh
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74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
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Why can we LOSE our Religion, but not LOSE it's effects on us?
by gumby inanother thread inspired by me chatting with our sweet little mary.... we who have exited the jehovahs witnesses religion, are now convinced we made the right move.
most of us have no doubt this religion is a destructive, cultlike religion that we wouldn't wish on anybody....and yet,.
....we still suffer the effects it had on us.
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Van Gogh
Great and healing thread. I agree and empathize with everyone including uninformed: “there is nothing to do about it except commiserate with all of you. My respect and love to all of you.”
Gumby,
Yes, we are now convinced we made the right move and STILL suffer the effects it had on us.
We cannot lose that religion as 'truth' because we keep looking to replace it with a truth or an answer somewhere “out there” “in the book” (moanzy). But as dreamer said: NO ONE has the right answer.
Yes, many STILL have low self-esteem. Many have no confidence, feel unworthy, feel guilty.
Jgnat said: we can’t loose our history; our brains are hard-wired; we need to rewrite the programming and choose to go contrary to our "instincts", despite the fact that our entire being tells us it is true. (dreamer). We have taken the “red pill” and rationally know the “truth” was not the truth. Like fullofdoubtnow, it would be nice to take the “blue pill” and blank it all out. But we can’t, because it is all we have and all we are: Our HISTORY, good and bad, MAKES US (jgnat).
eyeslice put it concisely:
“…a total loss of identity. I has been a witness all my life, had given up lots for my religion, education, work opportunities etc, and was therefore only defined by who I was as part of 'God's organization'. I suddenly lost all that through no fault of my own and although I thought I could just walk away, it has been a long hard and sometimes lonely walk.”
This loss of identity can be compounded by parents who stunted any normal growth in the first place (moanzy and garybuss).
After summarizing these comments, I think the problem is that we keep seeking answers OUTSIDE ourselves. We were conditioned to distrust ourselves (our wicked heart). We should of course look INSIDE. But then we have another problem: Which inner voice or gut feeling do we listen to if, at he same time, we have to go contrary to our instincts and what our entire being tells us is true?
Yes, all these wasted years Jgnat… I agree with, and fully understand Gumby: “when you've become older, you don't feel you have ENOUGH time to learn… I'll be 70 when I'll learn things I shoulda known at 30!” but as you say, we’ve been through a unique experience. IMO age is crucial to some ones exit attitude. Raised as a JW and exiting over 40 it tends to become especially sobering. I found Ray Franz’s final words in CoC on his exit age and future prospects both poignant and consoling. Prolonging the WTS-induced self-doubt and cultivating a sceptical viewpoint can become a drag. Looking outside ourselves to others to see how we should be or could have been won’t make for much happiness either. In the end acceptance and forgiveness can make the seed bloom and make us bear fruit. We can choose to use those painful experiences make us MORE compassionate, MORE sensitive (Jgnat). Perhaps past experiences need to be conquered by those. Perhaps we’ll once find out that this is the reason we are/were here after all. Till we find out, faith is all we have.
Peace to us all.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
LT
“…most so-called Christian nations reserve the right for an individual to conscientiously object to a given war that they feel is unjust.”
I think an individual can sometimes conscientiously object to war as such; not a given war (and certainly not a particular unjust battle or mission). That is the problem. It is an all or nothing proposition. Once you’re in you’ll have to refuse orders or desert. You cannot pick and choose. This is even more so the case with autocratic regimes where no such right exists in the first place.
“…nation of individuals feels that another nation is encroaching on neighboring nations' rights…”
If the dynamics of this scenario were only that simple. I think the picture can be a little larger here as well.
A nation of course always consists of individuals; this does not mean that the feeling of a nation necessarily equates the sum of individual feelings. National feeling has proven to be a treacherous touchstone for justifying wars.
There are always at least two nations of individuals; all nations usually feel their rights as being encroached on. Representatives of all nations stir up (propaganda) the (patriotic) feelings of individuals so as to create a sense of solidarity and shared fate: nationalism. This “national feeling” is imposed on all individuals. All individuals could eventually be made to feel their rights as being encroached on.
Feeling, or rather, thinking, truly becomes individual when it transcends “group thinking” or national sentiments. These independent spirits are usually ahead of the pack, discerning the dynamics that lead up to a crisis. They are often ostracized for preaching preventative measures. Eventually, resorting to equal and exacting force will be necessary, further strengthening the national bond. Here again national feeling can be a faulty compass.
That is how an essentially benign “Kulturnation” (a nation united by culture instead of by central administration) like Germany got caught unawares by ranting German emancipators from the 1870s onward. One incident in 1914 (out of countless other pivotal moments and developments in which preventative action could have been taken) was enough to trigger a preset treaty-induced mechanism compelling the individual nations - to whom the all the subjects had attributed their individual competence – to act on their (neighbor’s) infringed-upon rights. WWI and II could have been avoided at any stage before taking military action. Here it was legalism combined with national feeling; the individuals could only go to war without any say in it. Refusing to continue with the madness would get you shot on the spot.
Justifiable and necessary preventative military/humanitarian action becomes an increasingly workable and justifiable option within an international legal framework that is authorized to translate national and international feeling and indignation into clearly defined action governed and enforced by international law.
In a crowded world where nations are bound to bump into each other ever more, their rights and national feelings will be increasingly affected by the high tech defense industry, national and religious sentiments, intelligence services, trade barriers, energy and water.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
LT,
Perhaps there is a great multitude of “Lords of this planet” with as many beliefs about the great good of the global interests. You yourself point out that many of them happen to believe their crusade must lead them into Iraq. You yourself happen not to, as do I, Auldsoul and half of the American electorate. Therein lies the problem.
It shows that it is not really the individual that decides, believes or chooses, but a manipulating force, be it a born-again political agenda-setting executive, a defense industry or intelligence service providing information. This is where one gets bogged down in the deep mud of conjecture, nationalistic sentiment, disinformation and propaganda, like all those millions of responsible individuals got bogged down literally in the trenches of Flanders and Verdun. Especially when you start confusing “supporting your country” with “global interests”. The Lords that manage to conjure up the biggest following are justified by their numbers and thus manage to steer towards the more bigoted forms of nationalism.
When push comes to shove, everybody always supports their OWN country, never believing it contradicts the best global interests. The few informed individuals and intellectuals who actually look beyond the short-term interests of their own country to take into account the true, long-term global interests of the weak, usually have to drop out of sight real soon as prophets not honored in their own countries. They form a minority of “traitors” that condemn the bigoted forms of nationalism.
IF we can truly be called Lords of this planet, we should concentrate a little bit less on belatedly supporting our own respective countries in war, instead serving the best global interests by trying to resort LESS to force through preventative measures. National self-interest and pride often stand in the way.
With hindsight many would agree (except the WTS) a timely dispatching of a military peacekeeping force to Rwanda would have been called for.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
I forgot to thank for the most outspoken dissenting opinions as well, as expressed by heathen and proplog2. These comments from the latter poster resonated with me in particular:
"The real deal is overcoming nationalism. The Bible is a story about transcending human selfishness. The selfishness of nations is an unecessary exaggeration of the selfishness that helped humans evolve in the first place...Nationalism is the greatest evil on earth... War makes widows and orphans."
Overcoming and transcending.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
Auldsoul,
When you read my previous posts on this thread, you will see that already completely agree with point made by Narkissos:
“What we didn't want to see is that consciencious objection makes much more sense (whether one likes it or not) when it is really grounded on individual conscience, not the rules of an organisation imposed to its members under social penalty (d'fng and shunning).” A wrested conscience is a contradictio in terminis.
I admire my friend from the “group within a group” for his principles. He would have objected to serving, regardless of the org. It is just that the standpoint of the org facilitated and attracted the adherents to this stance. It is interesting though that he can barely keep his eyes dry when we walk through my neighborhood and streets where he lived during the war as a child. (Anne Frank lived five streets down from me.) Tens of thousands of Jews were deported from here. But to HIM, this is his main motivation for being a conscientious objector. He is proud of the years he spent in jail paying for his principles. And yes, to him there is no just war – the same position as the org. I have not yet developed a meaningful post-org position on the subject discussed here and have yet to examine my motivation.
Incidentally, I just learnt that my nephew recently joined the Dutch army. I cannot say I am not a little bit proud of him. I do have the secret fascination with the male martial thing. When I was drafted in 1981, I could have opted for the UN peace-keeping mission in Lebanon. A lot of guys returned pretty screwed up from that. During my medical, I ran into a fellow Jdub whose unbelieving dad was actually a rear admiral. He joined.
You are right, the neutral/anti-war position is imposed and its value therefore substantially diminished or even negated. But fighting someone else’s war is also imposed, whether through law or group pressure. Under these circumstances, individual conscience can be buried or be absent. That’s the whole problem.
Just playing the Devil’s advocate here in trying to explain an organizations anti-war stance ?, Once you have a Highly Controlled global Religious organization, its individual members become less anonymous and identify with each other. You might run into one wearing another uniform (but the same assembly badge). At a certain level this policy will promote “peace” or solidarity within that group. A necessary precondition for creating and maintaining a brotherhood or common bond within this organization, facilitating its survival. Cultic? The same mechanisms are at work in forging the common bond within a fighting band of brothers.
Thanks everybody for all your comments and input; I respect them. Sorry to ramble and please, go easy on me ;-) I am re-examining long held beliefs for myself outside of matrixes or imposing mentors. Less judging; more leeway.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
Honesty:
Point taken. I defer.
Adding to this, for many people the holocaust is a valid reason not to believe in God.
From that perspective, mankind (represented by those in power) perhaps failed a Divine obligation/commission to take responsibility to protect against evil... and honor the Divine in ourselves.
It all depends in which stage we choose to negate the evil. But you are right, once you arrive at the killing fields action seems to be called for. In that case, we "enlightened" humans are guilty for letting Combodia, Rwanda, etc happen.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
Thanks everybody for you comments!
It will give me a lot to think about.
I find it interesting that a principle that to me signified an essential part of Christianity, does not present a dilemma for most of the posters here. In comparison I read a lot on JWD about feeling guilty about something minor as taking part in celebrating birthdays etc. Birthdays present themselves every other week or month though.
I guess the "just war" dilemma will become evident for a Christian when actually deciding if a war is to be considered just, when taking responsibility for it, enlisting, looking the enemy in the eyes and pulling the trigger without a bad conscience
In that scenario, there is a problem when subject to a draft in an unjust war. In case of a war to be considered just without a draft, and you are in a position to enlist, do you join or hide behind morals? A lot of the participants will be at a carefree age. It also depends from which side of the argument the group pressure comes.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
Auldsoul,
I am not talking about a (neutral) organization as such or Jehovah’s Witnesses as a (neutral) group. Jim Penton did all the homework on that one.
As I stated in my first post in this thread: it is about a sense of global brotherhood; (not the organization as such) it is about sincere motivation of Christian love; it is about what one actually practices; it is about an end result. It is about a group of sincere peace loving individuals who happen to belong to a larger group, organization or church. A larger group can somehow facilitate a smaller group of individuals. The latter is the group I am referring to and have encountered. It is not an organization. It would rather transcend an organization.
VG -
74
True Christians neutral in War?
by Van Gogh intoday i re-established contact with an older true - friend who is still a jw.
in the fifty years that he has been baptized he invested a lot of time and effort in helping the needy and elderly, loyally taking up responsibilities in the org as an elder, organizer, speaker and shepherd.
he is still out there as a lowly publisher, tirelessly going from door to door with only his bible.
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Van Gogh
Kenneson:
I’m trying to approach this subject from someone’s (perhaps mine as well) gut perspective (naked faith) of what could be an identifying mark of true individual Christians that ironically happens to be expressed through an organization that stands between (as in obstructs) Christ and his members. It could either be an objectionable “wonderful work” (Matthew 7:22-23) or an identifying mark of people who are unwittingly Christian in their conduct a la Matthew 25:35-40 (Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee?)
In this perspective it is the end result and the sincere motivation of love that counts, whether originating from a Quaker or a Jdub. Whatever other beliefs are professed by such persons about a war-killing God are harmless and inconsequential, however right or wrong they might turn out to be. Besides, Christ is said to have turned the other cheek, and is said to have admonished his followers to love their enemies.
Admittedly, I’m in a tight corner here, judging by the answers I am getting here. This is where Narkissos saves my ass, as he – as usual - concisely phrases where my (friends) position originates from: The post-WW II European pacifist perspective. The indelible experience of war and racism ensuing from nineteenth-century nationalism and war. German Christians ended up fighting for what were perceived as just wars from 1870 onwards. They ended up on the wrong side of the (ultimately concentration camp) fence. My dads Catholic cousins were proud of their Hitler Jugend uniforms, raised as they were with their anti British and anti Communist sentiments. My dads uncle served in the Waffen SS in Russia. To them, fighting the commies was just, as it was later on to the Americans in Korea and Vietnam (Kissinger did some orchestrating there). Enlisting in the army, one did not have the option of ticking a box for either A. Auschwitz B. Stalingrad or C. the Western Allies. So I am a bit apprehensive as to the validity of defending your country or cause.
Here in the Netherlands, at the war memorial on Liberation Day 5th of May (Holland was mainly liberated by Canadians, so thank you Jgnat). Jehovahs Witnesses are often mentioned in the official speeches. A disproportionate 110.000 Jews never returned to the Netherlands, and Jdubs somehow were spared sharing the shame of my dads family. WW II contributed to both sets of my grandparents becoming JWs.
Narkissos: “really grounded on individual conscience, not the rules of an organization imposed to its members under social penalty.” This indeed negates the value of the average, individual JWs neutrality stance. A strong argument.
Jgnat:
Who do we need to use swords against? Bully Saddam H who was armed and created by a Western sword industry doing the dirty work of killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians by proxy? Who decides who are the bullies? At one time the Russians thought the bullies were NATO and NATO thought the bullies were in the USSR. You will get caught up in a political matrix doing politicians dirty work. Vietnam vets and thousands of Dutch casualties in post WW II Indonesia will confirm this.
M.J.
Yes, self defense is clearly defined until the worms crawl out of the can. That’s where you’re bound to end up.
Gumby:
Christians could have taken up arms to defend themselves against persecution. No Pax Romana there. They did not take up arms. Perhaps a single battle can be noble, not a whole war. Even Gandhi understood the merits of non-violence.
Metatron:
We are talking from the perspective of a Christian – true or not. From your perspective I could perhaps agree. But I won’t. Why use war instead of preventative measures of social justice for solving problems in Congo or Darfur? It is all politics. They failed horribly in Rwanda. Why get caught up in it.
Auldsoul:
The identifying mark of Jesus' disciples is love. This could in a rudimentary way be applied to abstinence of war. I agree, the only way in which love can be demonstrated is individually, not the rules of an organization imposed to its members under social penalty. So your logic works for me? I’m not so sure about your contrasting of organization vs individual. There is a lot of talk in Christianity of body and congregation. Besides, I am not defending an organization. It is about group of sincere peace loving individuals who through their actions could also be shunned or hated by society in general. Like my friend, me or Narkissos, this could be cause for - at one time or another - identifying with a part of Christianity which happens to occur within an organization.
VG