“War is hell,” observed Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman. And
Steven Spielberg dips us right into its fiery midst in his 1998 Summer
release.
The opening and closing scenes in particular are riveting. Says Jamie
Portman of Southam Newspapers (Vancouver Sun, July 24, 1998, F1 – 4):
"In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg wanted to show the true
atrocity of war, so he created one of the most brutal and graphic
battle scenes ever filmed." For his part, Spielberg is quoted saying:
"I’ve seen all the World War II movies, and with few exceptions I’ve
never felt that they were anything more than propaganda tools." This
movie puts the viewer right into the action. Adds Spielberg: "I’m
asking a lot of an audience – I’m asking them to participate in the
real experience of those soldiers who had to do these jobs." Tom Hanks,
who plays the central character, Captain John Miller, upon viewing the
movie alone in the screening room, commented: "I have never cried
harder at the end of a motion picture, I was completely undone." (My
dad fought in the last War. He never breathed a word of his experience
to us kids. He did all his crying in private too.) The CBC movie
reviewer, Rick Staehling, commented that because the movie is so
incredibly graphic, it is ipso facto anti-war. The audience with which
my sons and I viewed the movie laughed only once during the nearly
three hours of running time, and was palpably subdued upon exiting the
theatre.
War
is indeed hell. Yet, in the long history of the Christian Church, apart
from the earliest era, every war engaged in throughout Christendom has
been supported by the Church on both sides of the conflict. How in the
name of Jesus can this be?
What, for starters, of Christ’s express words?: "Love your enemies
(Matt. 5, Luke 6)." Further, how can Christians do an end run around
Jesus’ explicit teaching by reverting to Old Testament endorsement of
war when Jesus flatly said?: "So in everything [except war?], do to
others [except your enemies? – see Matt. 5:43ff] what you would have
them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matt
7:12)."; and "…’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor [except
your enemies?] as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these
two commandments (Matt 22:37-40)."
Or how can Christians ignore other New Testament voices such as the
Apostle Paul’s?: "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing
debt to love one another [except your enemies?], for he who loves his
fellowman [except his enemies?] has fulfilled the law. The
commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not
steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor [except your
enemies?] as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor [except your
enemies?]. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:8-10)."
Or what of James’ pithy statement?: "If you really keep the royal law
found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor [except your enemies?] as
yourself,’ you are doing right (James 2:8)." And John’s witness?: "We
love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates
his brother [except his non-Christian enemies?], he is a liar. For
anyone who does not love his brother [except his enemies?], whom he has
seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this
command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother [except his
enemies?] (I Jn 4:19-21)." What kind of exegetical gymnastics are
utilized to dodge such overwhelming and consistent New Testament
testimony?
Is it possible that all these witnesses, Jesus included, did not read
their Old Testaments? Or is it likelier that many Christians have not
read their New Testaments? Are John 1 and Hebrews 1 not really in the
Bible, both of which point to the primacy of Jesus as the final
revelation of God’s will?: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers
through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these
last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all
things, and through whom he made the universe (Heb 1:1-2)."
Like Timothy, I was raised on Scripture. From a child I could recite
volumes of it, including the all-time favourite verse of
evangelicalism, John 3:16 – in my case in the majestic King James
Version: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life."
I discovered only later to my shock that apparently John 3:16 has a
footnote inserted into many Christians’ Bibles. It is never quoted out
loud, however. But it is obviously no less binding dogma. After
"world", "whosoever", and "perish" the footnote reads: "Except our
enemies!". They must in fact yield or indeed "perish"! Yet, I always
was told it was the "Liberals", masters of the exception clause, who
played fast and loose with Scripture…
Watching Spielberg’s film, with the overwhelming random slaughter and
maiming, it occurred to me again that war is the most complete
inversion of evangelism imaginable! Not good seed, but bullets and
bombs are scattered with abandon, thereby utterly inverting the
evangelistic mandate. One means "life abundant", the other delivers
"death indiscriminate". In excess of 110 millions have been annihilated
in largely Church-endorsed wars this century alone. I doubt if all
evangelists worldwide for the entire 20th century could add up their
collective catch to match that harvest of death. Yet, many evangelists
in their work of "saving souls" have supported the unspeakable carnage.
Is this not profoundly disturbing?! What could be more blatantly
anti-Christian? Why has no major evangelistic voice spoken out? On the
contrary, many evangelists, and all military chaplains, have preached
to the troops at war in hopes to see them "made right with God" since
tomorrow they might die. But when have those same evangelists and
chaplains heeded Jesus by preaching the Gospel, lest tomorrow they
might kill? How can their converts possibly be right with God when they
destroy the neighbour (I John 4)? Or can "love of brother" somehow be
twisted to mandate "slaughter of enemies"? And is such twisting the
work of God or the work of the evil one ("Did God really say… (Gen.
3:1ff?"))? Do evangelists and chaplains know better than Jesus? Did not
Jesus always call for death of self, never death of the other? Are
there not two "greatest commandments", not just one? Is not love of God
only half the Gospel?
What of the Apostle Paul’s declaration?: "For though we live in the
world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with
are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine
power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor 10:3-4)." Is war not the ultimate
worldliness, a "total depravity", according to the New Testament? How
can something so patently anti-Christian be so blessed by so many
Christians throughout so many centuries? What kind of awesome
brainwashing, what potent spell, is at work here? Dare we call it,
simply, sin?
Is it possible that on this issue we have for centuries tended to be
equally blind as another group of believers to whom Jesus said?: "Why
is my language not clear to you? [How could Jesus’ language about "love
of enemies" be any clearer?] Because you are unable to hear what I say.
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your
father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to
the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his
native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I
tell the truth, you do not believe me (John 8:43-45)!"
Now the truth that sets us free (John 8:32) is obedience to God’s will
summed up in the two greatest commandments (Matt. 22; Mark 12; I John):
love of God and love of neighbour. As believers, failure to love in
this way is to invite Jesus’ warning: "Not everyone who says to me,
‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does
the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that
day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name
drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them
plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Therefore
everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is
like a wise man who built his house on the rock (Matt 7:21-24)."
Can it be, that after all, many proclaimed followers of Jesus are in
fact not? Is it possible that many Christians who claim "…not I, but
Christ… (Gal. 2:20, KJV)" on the contrary embrace religious nepotism,
of which patriotism is its most hideous expression? For all our
protestations, despite our reputed allegiance to what "The Bible
says!", do we in the end deny it like the "Liberals"? Have many
Christians been far closer to the spirit of Pharisaism, one of
murderous prevarication, than we ever dare to admit (John 8)? Does this
spirit not directly contradict the "weightier matters of the law": love
of God and neighbour (Matt. 23:23, echoing Micah 6:8)? Was Gandhi
right?: "The only people on earth who do not see Christ and His
teachings as nonviolent are Christians." Is it thinkable that we
Bible-believing Christians stand in danger one day of hearing Jesus’
words: "…’Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41).’ ", for "… ‘I
tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of
these [except our enemies?], you did not do for me (Matt 25:45).’ " Is
that not hell: the failure to love (Jesus in) the neighbour and the
enemy (Matt. 5 – 7, Luke 6, I John 4)?
War is indeed hell. In the movie, Captain John Miller comments: "For
every man I kill, the further I get from home." Of course! A Nazi
defendant at the post-War Nuremberg Trials said: "You have defeated us
Nazis. But the spirit of Nazism has arisen like a Phoenix amongst you."
Precisely! We always become what we hate. When the U.S. dropped the
first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and obliterated instantaneously
100,000 lives, then three days later thousands more were slaughtered in
Nagasaki (in sheer death-dealing magnitude utterly dwarfing this
decade’s Oklahoma City bombing), President Harry Truman declared: "That
was the greatest event in human history!" This from a lay Baptist
preacher and Sunday School teacher… Astounding! What, in God’s name,
could be a more blatant denial of the Resurrection than those bombs and
that statement?! The Resurrection alone is the greatest event in human
history! And it means everything war does not: life abundant and
everlasting. What business did that Bible-believing Christian have in
so utterly contradicting the very centrepiece of Christian faith? And
did not the majority of Bible-believing Christians at the time cheer
Truman on? Do not the vast majority of Bible-believing Christians still
applaud the continued development of post-War weaponry and its
deployment, which, in 1996 dollars in the U.S. alone, has amounted to
5.5 trillion dollars and countless lives for whom Christ died snuffed
out? Where are the leading Christian voices opposing this anti-Christ
obscenity? Why, in Jesus’ name, are they silent? Why?! "In God we
trust"? Balderdash!
"Home" (Captain Miller) ultimately is where love is. Where God is. Its
opposite is hell. So hell is also war! For hell is in the end the
obstinate refusal to love God and neighbour; the endless attempt at
doing end runs around the two greatest commandments (Matt 25). The
biblical witness is: the only test case for love of God is love of
neighbour (I John 4). And the test case for love of neighbour is love
of enemies (Matt. 5 – 7, Luke 6). Failure to love the enemy is failure
to love God is hell.
Spielberg gets it right: war is hell, and (in this case) hell is war.
The question begs asking: What business have Christians ever had
propagating hell?