So can a Christian put
on a military or police uniform, knowing that this might mean he’ll have to
kill another human being? Dr. Sprinkle and other pacifists would say no, but I say
yes. Here’s my case.
As we discussed
before, the Lord’s created three distinct institutions: the family, the church,
and the state. Each of these has a sphere of responsibility, and although there
might be a little overlap, there’s not much. The family has the responsibility of
raising
the next generation in the fear and teaching of the Lord and being the first
resort when a member is in need, the church has the responsibility of spreading
the Message of Christ, discipling
believers, and being the last resort for those in need (if the family’s
unwilling or unable to help), and the state’s there to maintain
basic civil order, basic justice, and to maintain rule of law.
On a side-note, the
sources I’ve been reading date the establishment of the state all the back. . .
to Noah. When he stepped off the Ark, the Lord told
him (and thru him the rest of humanity):
Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans shall their blood
be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made mankind.
This was the establishment of the principle that because people are
made in God’s image, the standard punishment for murder is to be the death
penalty. And in order to have the death penalty (as opposed to simple blood
vengeance), you have to have a state doing its job.
And as I participate
in each institution, my responsibilities within each will be different. As a
believer I’m supposed to share the Message of Christ with the lost, both
collectively in the church and individually. As a father I have
responsibilities which are different from those as a church member. And if my
calling is to be a soldier or police officer and fulfill the state’s function
in Romans 13, then my responsibilities to that calling are different from those
of a church member.
Au contraire, says Dr.
Sprinkle:
Jesus doesn’t give any room for obeying some bits of the Sermon, while
setting aside others if your vocation demands it. A lawyer who’s a Christian
shouldn’t lie, a lifeguard who’s a Christian shouldn’t lust, and even if you
were the secretary of defense, if Jesus is your King, then your King says you
shouldn’t retaliate, shouldn’t hate your enemy, shouldn’t confront evil with
violence. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we gladly surrender every fiber of our
lives to the One who breathed the stars into being. . . Matthew 5 isn’t directed
at secular governments, but it is binding on followers of Jesus no matter their
vocation.
I have to admit, that’s
probably the strongest argument I’ve heard for his position. Following this
line of reasoning, I can’t be a soldier if being a soldier means I’m going to
have to “resist
an evil person.” Even if I was a soldier in World War Two, I’d be sinning if I
physically resisted the Nazis. Or if I was a police officer and a man is
shooting at children in a schoolyard, I’m not supposed to resist him by any
means except persuasion and prayer.
I’m not hitting a
straw-man here. To his great credit, Dr. Sprinkle spends an entire chapter
handling the “hard cases,” such as the aforementioned soldier in WW2, or “What
if someone breaks into your home?” And he’s consistent. He doesn’t believe that
being a faithful follower of Jesus can be made compatible with taking up
(lethal) force against another person under
any circumstances. It seems that his argument is “Well, if Jesus commanded
us to do or not do something, then we have to choose obedience over expediency
or even what seems rational.”
Well, I agree with him
that we have to choose obedience over everything else. If this is what Jesus expects
of us, then our part is to trust and obey.
But is that the entire
story?
Let’s go back to the
Sermon for a moment. Is everything there categorical? When Jesus tells
us “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants
to borrow from you,” does he mean it? Let’s interpret this the way Dr. Sprinkle
would take it. When a beggar who’s smelling to high heaven of something out of
a bottle approaches and asks me for money—making it pretty obvious he’s going to buy more
booze with it--apparently Jesus wants me to just hand him money. I’m going to
issue a call to Dr. Sprinkle right now. I’m officially asking for the address
to your house. Once you give it (since Jesus tells us to give anything to
anyone who asks for it, right?), I’m going to show up at your house with a
moving van. That TV looks really nice. That couch would look great in my living
room. Wow, that bed is sure nicer than mine. And I’m sure you’re going to just
watch me take it, since Jesus told us
“Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to
borrow from you.”
But no. Dr. Sprinkle himself
says
in his book “Jesus doesn’t envision giving all your money to every
beggar on the street.” What? What do you mean, Dr. Sprinkle? You mean that
maybe. . .just maybe, we need to take a closer look at what the Sermon says in the light of the rest of Scripture?
With all respect, here
are some questions for Dr. Sprinkle:
1) Do you lock your doors at night? How is that not keeping someone from taking something that belongs to you? How
is that not disobeying the
straight-up command of Jesus?
2) Do you pray in public at all? Well, I read here
in the Sermon on the Mount that “when you pray, go into your room, close the
door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” So is Jesus forbidding public
prayer?
3) Do you have a savings account? If so, how is that not disobedience to
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin
destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” And if you do have a savings
account, I’m officially asking you to email me the account number and any
passwords I’ll need to empty that sucker out.
Just for the record, I also lock my doors at night, and I don’t feel obligated
to hand money to someone who’s involved in a self-destructive lifestyle. And I
don’t think our Savior is against public prayer.
Here’s something more
to consider re: the question of “Can a believer be a soldier and still follow
Christ?” There are two instances of personal encounters with soldiers in the
Gospels which Dr. Sprinkle--probably because of space limitations--didn't get to. Let’s take a look.
Jesus encountered
a Roman centurion, who would’ve been in charge of a hundred soldiers underneath
him. The centurion begged him to heal his servant, and unlike most people of
his day, he understood that Jesus didn’t have to be physically present to do
his work. And Jesus’ response? “[He] was amazed and said to those following
him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great
faith.’” This is one of the very few people we see in the Gospels whom Jesus praises
unconditionally. Strangely enough, the Lord—who never had any problems
calling out sin when he saw it—never told the centurion to leave his job.
But you (and Dr.
Sprinkle) might reply, “But we don’t know what he did after he met Jesus. Maybe
he repented and quit his job.” That’s possible, but not really likely, is it?
OK, well, let’s look
at the other encounter I have in mind. John the Baptist was attracting all
sorts of people to his ministry to be baptized as a sign of repentance. Please
keep in mind that this man had absolutely no problem calling people out for
their sin. He told a king to his face that he (the king) was indulging in
adultery, and for that the king put him in prison, and John’s stand eventually cost
him his head.
So, not afraid of
calling people out, not reticent about telling people what they need to hear in
order to get right with God, right? So getting back to my point (I actually do
have one), lots of different people came to John the Baptist to repent and be
baptized. Here’s the part I want to focus on:
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of
vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping
with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our
father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for
Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does
not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who
has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what
should we do?”
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Quit your jobs immediately, since you can’t be a soldier
of Rome and be right with God.”
Oh waitaminute. That’s not
what it says! Pardon me, I misquoted the last verse:
He replied, “You can stay on as soldiers, as long you never kill
anybody.”
Oops, wrong again! What was I
thinking? Let’s try one more time:
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content
with your pay.”
Please forgive my rather lame attempt at humor, but that’s what Mr. Tell-It-Like-It-Is had
to say to soldiers. In order for them to show true repentance, he told them to 1)
not extort money, 2) don’t accuse people falsely, and 3) be content with their
pay. Each of these was a common (mal)practice of Roman soldiers. I’m sorry for
the lame attempt at humor, but I’m trying to make a point here. John the
Baptist apparently had no problem with Roman soldiers (not bound by the Geneva
Convention) doing their jobs, which would frequently involve killing people.
You see, the way I’ve
always interpreted the Sermon on the Mount is that it is applicable to me as an individual believer. If someone
strikes me on one cheek, I offer him the other one. I don’t take vengeance on
my own initiative. But when I wore the uniform of the U.S. Army, I wasn’t representing
myself. I was representing the U.S. military and its government. That’s
when I was under the auspices of Romans 13, just like any police officer, FBI
agent, or judge. When a cop pulls a gun on a bank robber, he’s not pulling the
gun under his own authority; he’s doing so under the authority of the city’s
police department and government. That’s why we issue them uniforms. They’re not
vigilantes. They’re fulfilling the role of government which the Lord instituted
back in Noah’s day.
Now please keep in
mind that I’m under no illusions that government fulfills this purpose all of
the time, or even most of the time. Throughout human history, kings and
dictators have ruled by whim and typically killed anyone who disagreed with
them. The idea that the common people would have any type of voice in how they’re governed would be literally unimaginable to most people
who’ve ever lived. In the last century, Communist governments have murdered
around 100 million of their own citizens. But even under Roman rule,
the apostle Paul, speaking with the authority of Jesus Christ himself, told us
that the authorities which exist have been placed there by God himself, and he’s
placed a sword in their hands. In other words, apparently the Lord sees bad government as better than no government. And when you compare how
relatively just and free Western societies are compared with just about
everything else we’ve seen (King Davids are hard to come by these days), you
have cause to be thankful.
Let’s, shall we?
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