Peace and Justice in Iraq?
— Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 —
Today is the ninth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. We might disagree about whether the war was the right decision, and about where U.S. policy should go from here. But those who belong to Christ ought to be able to agree on one at least one thing: prayer for peace, justice, and gospel in the old country of Abram.
As we pray, let’s recognize that peace is about more than an end to violence and bloodshed, although that’s certainly a first step. We should pray instead for the post-Saddam country to end the internal warring, including the persecution of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We should pray for a dawn of a new country in which human rights and personal dignity are respected and maintained, including religious liberty for all persons.
Some have dismissed, with a laugh and a wave of the hand, the idea that there could be “an Iraqi Thomas Jefferson.” This dismissal is warranted if the idea is that American ideals and institutions can be merely replicated in another cultural stream, at the point of a gun-barrel. But if by Thomas Jefferson, one means an Iraqi leader who respects human worth as bearing the divine image, then I would argue such an idea starts not in colonial Virginia but in the sands of the Middle East itself.
The freedom and peace for which we pray must also include the freedom to leave one religion for another, and to seek to persuade others of what one holds to be ultimate meaning. We should pray for the Iraqi people to enjoy political freedom, and to be free from hunger and thirst. Christians should also pray that they will gain a share in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Praying for Christian evangelism in Iraq isn’t cultural imperialism. Christianity isn’t American. Our gospel tells us that our God called to himself a Gentile sojourner by the name of Abram, out of the Ur of the Chaldees, which many scholars locate in what is present-day Iraq. Abraham was adopted into the family of God, and became, through God’s promise, the father of many nations. Those of us in Christ have been grafted onto this family. In Christ, we become children of Abraham (Gal. 3:29), with all the same promises and all the same belonging, whether we are from Tel Aviv or Tegucigalpa, Birmingham or Baghdad.
Let’s pray today for political stability in Iraq. Let’s pray for a thriving culture there. And let’s pray for Abraham’s gospel to reach back to Ur.
Dr. Moore,
Thank you for your even handedness and tenderheartedness toward the Iraq issue. Too many American Christians take a constant us vs. them approach to their view of the world. Your words are needed and refreshing.
I would love to see peace in Iraq. I know there are Christians there. There were Christians there before the United States arrived nine years ago. And sad to say but the reports from conservative sources confirm that there are FEWER Christians there today than before the war started. Mostly because the persecution against Christians is stronger now in Iraq than ever. May God bless our Christian brothers and sisters there and in all persecuted countries is my prayer!
Oh, come. We as a nation are obsessed with this fantasy of “nation-building.” We invade, but instead of cleanly completing our mission and then getting out (which Israel is excellent at, by the way), we have this idea that we can “create a new state,” so we hang around… and hang around…
Which new state promptly falls apart the moment we (finally) leave. Seriously, what do we expect? And very often, as is the case in Egypt, the regime that replaces the old dictatorship is every bit as evil, just in a different way. But instead, Americans were all crowing over “the triumph of democracy.” Just how idiotic can we get?
This Iraqi immigrant, thanks you. :-)
Here is the text of the Land Letter, written in October 2002. I will highlight important points and let the text speak for itself:
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
of The Southern Baptist Convention
October 3, 2002
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, DC 20502
Dear Mr. President,
In this decisive hour of our nation’s history we are writing to express our deep appreciation for your bold, courageous, and visionary leadership. Americans everywhere have been inspired by your eloquent and clear articulation of our nation’s highest ideals of freedom and of our resolve to defend that freedom both here and across the globe.
We believe that your policies concerning the ongoing international terrorist campaign against America are both right and just. Specifically, we believe that your stated policies concerning Saddam Hussein and his headlong pursuit and development of biochemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are prudent and fall well within the time-honored criteria of just war theory as developed by Christian theologians in the late fourth and early fifth centuries A.D.
First, your stated policy concerning using military force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction is a just cause. In just war theory only defensive war is defensible; and if military force is used against Saddam Hussein it will be because he has attacked his neighbors, used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and harbored terrorists from the Al Qaeda terrorist network that attacked our nation so viciously and violently on September 11, 2001. As you stated in your address to the U.N. September 12th:
“We can harbor no illusions. . . . Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. He’s fired ballistic missiles at Iran and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians and forty Iraqi villages.”
Disarming and neutralizing Saddam Hussein is to defend freedom and freedom-loving people from state-sponsored terror and death.
Second, just war must have just intent. Our nation does not intend to destroy, conquer, or exploit Iraq. As you declared forthrightly in your speech to the U.N. General Assembly:
“The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. . . . Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.”
This is clearly a just and noble intent.
Third, just war may only be commenced as a last resort. As you so clearly enumerated before the U.N., Saddam Hussein has for more than a decade ignored Security Council resolutions or defied them while breaking virtually every agreement Into which he has entered. He stands convicted by his own record as a brutal dictator who cannot be trusted to abide by any agreement he makes. And while he prevaricates and obfuscates, he continues to obtain and develop the weapons of mass destruction which he will use to terrorize the world community of nations.
The world has been waiting for more than a decade for the Iraqi regime to fulfill its agreement to destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction, to cease producing them or the long-range missiles to deliver them in the future, and to allow thorough and rigorous inspections to verify their compliance. They have not, and will not, do so and any further delay in forcing the regime’s compliance would be reckless irresponsibility in the face of grave and growing danger.
Fourth, just war requires authorization by legitimate authority. We believe it was wise and prudent for you to go before the U.N. General Assembly and ask the U.N. Security Council to enforce its own resolutions. However, as American citizens we believe that, however helpful a U.N. Security Council vote might be, the legitimate authority to authorize the use of U.S. military force is the government of the United States and that the authorizing vehicle is a declaration of war or a joint resolution of the Congress.
When the threat of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba presented a grave threat to America’s security, President Kennedy asked for the support of the U.N. and the Organization of American States, but made it clear, with or without their support, those missiles would either be removed by the Soviets, or we would neutralize them ourselves. The American people expected no less from their president and their government.
Fifth, just war requires limited goals and the resort to armed force must have a reasonable expectation of success. In other words, “total war” is unacceptable and the war’s goals must be achievable. We believe your stated policies for disarming the murderous Iraqi dictator and destroying his weapons of mass destruction, while liberating the Iraqi people for his cruel and barbarous grip, more than meet those criteria.
Sixth, just war theory requires noncombatant immunity. We are confident that our government, unlike Hussein, will not target civilians and will do all that it can to minimize noncombatant casualties.
Seventh, just war theory requires the question of proportionality be addressed. Will the human cost of the armed conflict to both sides be proportionate to the stated objectives and goals? Does the good gained by resort to armed conflict justify the cost of lives lost and bodies maimed? We believe that the cost of not dealing with this threat now will only succeed in greatly increasing the cost in human lives and suffering when an even more heavily armed and dangerous Saddam Hussein must be confronted at some date in the not too distant future. We believe that every day of delay significantly increases the risk of far greater human suffering in the future than acting now would entail.
How different and how much safer would the history of the twentieth century have been had the allies confronted Hitler when he illegally reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 in clear violation of Germany’s treaty agreements? It is at least possible that tens of millions of the lives lost in World War II might not have been lost if the Allies had enforced treaty compliance then instead of appeasing a murderous dictator.
We are extremely grateful that we have a president who has learned the costly lessons of the twentieth century and who is determined to lead America and the world to a far different and better future in the twenty first century. As you told the world’s leaders at the U.N.:
“We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather. We must stand up for our security, and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand.”
Mr. President, we make that stand with you. In so doing, while we cannot speak for all of our constituents, we are supremely confident that we are voicing the convictions and concerns of the great preponderance of those we are privileged to serve.
Please know that we join tens of millions of our fellow Americans in praying for you and your family daily.
Sincerely Yours,
Richard D. Land, D.Phil.
President
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
Southern Baptist Convention
Dr. Chuck Colson
Chairman
Prison Fellowship Ministries
Dr. Bill Bright
Founder and Chairman
Campus Crusade for Christ International
D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.
President
Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc.
Dr. Carl D. Herbster
President
American Association of Christian Schools
The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16 million members in 42,334 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty, and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.
Your posts and reflections are always thoughtful and well considered, However, this would have been so much more complete if it had mentioned the suffering Christians of Iraq. They are an ancient and apostolic Church, and have witnessed to the Gospel for centuries before the arrival of Islam, and have endured persecution and suffering since. The Gospel is preached in Iraq by an ancient Church, which deserves our respect and support.
Proper conduct in war is only achievible through prayerful obedience to God’s will.