Dangerous Faith
Dangerous Faith is a ministry that strives to light a fire inside of Everyday Christians to live radically for Christ so that we can glorify God by advancing His Kingdom.
Dangerous Faith
97: Dangerous Life – Should Christians Be Pacifists?
Nate Williams and the Dangerous Life Team discuss pacifism. Should Christians avoid fighting and wars? What about self-defense?
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So she was taking my picture at the end of the event and she kept telling me hey, you need to open your eyes, look closed. I said, ma'am, I'm Asian. At the end yeah, she didn't say anything after that.
Speaker 3:That's too good To be fair I would never have guessed you were. Asian, that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really wouldn't have. Sometimes I think you're joking about it. I honestly just figured it out.
Speaker 2:Is my heritage a joke to you, Mackenzie.
Speaker 4:It is to me, so don't worry, mackenzie.
Speaker 2:I got your back. Welcome to the Dangerous Faith Podcast, nate Williams here, and we have the Dangerous Life team with me Zeke, justin Isaac and Mackenzie and little John Isaac over there as well. No Archie today, no mascot, but we will make it through. I do believe. Today we're going to talk about pacifism and I'm going to kind of lay the groundwork.
Speaker 2:Pacifism, not fighting in wars. Some people extend it to self-defense, not defending yourself or your family for various reasons. So generally religious reasons, I guess, I would say. And you look at the New Testament, it seems like there is some scriptural support for pacifism. It seems like there is some scriptural support for pacifism. You see, things like turn the other cheek, love your neighbor, you know, bless, do not curse. And what does Jesus say about doves and serpents Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves, and so on and so forth. And then ultimately Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That core Christian doctrine. So it seems like pacifism at first has a lot going for it Scriptural support and Christian doctrine and theology. So just opening up to y'all pacifism overall thoughts. Would you subscribe to it? Does it sound good to you? Or just what do we think about pacifism overall thoughts. Would you subscribe to it? Does it sound good to you? Or just what do we think about pacifism? Anyone? Don't everyone jump forward in haste to answer Justin?
Speaker 4:So, as a personal, my personal belief, I would call myself a pacifist Okay, but I don't know. I feel like it's how God calls you. For example, I believe God calls some people to be soldiers who serve your country, serve him, and I would never shame somebody for doing that. That's a very honorable thing and I don't think what they're doing is wrong. I just say go by your conviction. I know I couldn't do something like that myself and I strive to be a pacifist and bring peace.
Speaker 2:So you're saying more personal pacifism. You're not calling others to live that way, but you're just saying for you, yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, can we?
Speaker 2:define pacifism, I guess in general, you're not fighting in wars, not going to engage in certain occupations like being a soldier. Sometimes it also extends to personal life, so you will not use self-defense, you will not harm others to protect yourself or maybe your family. People will go to different lengths, but just things like that, yeah.
Speaker 4:And they even you know they named a whole ocean after it the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's exactly right, Crushed it.
Speaker 3:So, Justin, I've got some quick. So, Justin, I've got a question for you. Are you opposed to it? How far would you go with that? Like, if you saw someone else being harmed on the street, would you do something to stop it? Where do you draw the line?
Speaker 2:Because you might have to enact harm on a person, to protect that other person.
Speaker 4:I guess I would also say okay in defense of someone else yes. Kind of a way it's personal things I deal with myself. I don't know if I could do it for myself, but doing it for others I could. But I don't see anything wrong with it if you're defending somebody. I guess I don't know. I guess overall I am more is pacifistic a word.
Speaker 2:Pacificity? I have no idea. I have no idea.
Speaker 5:isaac thoughts so if you were drafted into the army and your squad was getting fired on right and you saw the person who was shooting at you, would you shoot them?
Speaker 4:well, first off, here's what I would say I'm colorblind and I have adhd, so I couldn't be in the military, even if I was drafted, so checkmate atheists.
Speaker 3:How pathetic. What if they drafted you anyway? We're so desperate at this point that they're willing to take you too.
Speaker 4:So here's what I do, right? I'm up front, right, and then Blake Tietro is right there beside me and I use him as a meat shield, and then I don't kill anybody, I understand, and?
Speaker 2:I use him as a meat shield and then I don't kill anybody. I understand, but we can keep asking those questions to Justin. Sure, it's a lot of fun. I do want our overall thoughts on pacifism as well.
Speaker 5:So, isaac, where do you want to go with that? I don't. I think it's. I wouldn't say you have to be a pacifist. I think as Christians we're called to be more loving and take more hurt onto ourselves, but not throw away everything. And don't protect your family, don't protect yourself, all that stuff or other people, or don't fight in wars wars because you know you may have to fight evil. If nobody would have fought Hitler, you know, something could happen, you know.
Speaker 2:Sure, I guess a pacifist might say something along the lines of isn't that taking matters into our own hands instead of trusting God to change hearts?
Speaker 5:What about when the Israelites invaded all the Canaanites, all them? And God was like kill them all, because I'm using you to save these people, because they were doing wrong to judge these people.
Speaker 2:True, and that is a good point. Israelites and Canaan and all that, I think again just playing. We've got to come up with a different word.
Speaker 4:Nathan's advocate.
Speaker 2:Nathan's advocate being me. In other words, they might say well, that was Old Testament times. What about New Testament, with the church and the Sermon on the Mount? Can you be a Christian? Look at someone across a battlefield end their life while still obeying the Sermon on the Mount? Yes, Isaac says yes. How?
Speaker 5:Because you are fighting for your country to fight evil. You're not fighting that one person. It's not like you're sent out to fight evil. You're not fighting that one person. It's not like you're sent out to fight this one person. You're fighting a movement of evil. Like in World War II, people were getting drafted and people were going to war to fight this evil that was coming from these other countries. To push it back. Because I feel like, as humans and as God's representatives on earth, we are to fight evil.
Speaker 2:So you would take the view of it's not like a personal thing, it's. You are almost on behalf of your government the way like an executioner, you're not murdering the prisoner, you are acting on behalf of the state as you perform that action. That's very interesting, justin so for me personally.
Speaker 4:Again, I go with kind of what Isaac said about that. God called those people to be the judgment. Be God's judgment there. I don't know Me personally. I don't feel good about any of that. I feel like if you take a life, that doesn't seem right to me, it's the same way I feel very iffy about the death penalty because you're taking what's God's deal into your own hands. That's how I feel about it.
Speaker 2:Now would that extend to, let's say, a police officer responding to a crime, let's say a murderer or a rapist, and so if they're called to do it, they might have to take a life in response to it?
Speaker 4:I think that the police officer's goal first of all is not just to immediately go in there and kill somebody they want to try to bring them in, and I'm all for that. They need to be brought to justice. Sometimes there's escalation yes. And if, sometimes, if a scene, if it can't be helped, like if the police officer's defending himself or defending someone else, that's in defense of somebody, but that's not like I don't know, it's a weird, weird line.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask do you think there's a difference between killing and murder, or do you think all like killing someone is murder? Or do you think there's like justified killing like in war? Or does that make sense?
Speaker 2:What I'm trying to say? Is there a difference between killing and murder?
Speaker 4:There absolutely is. I agree. I don't know if. I don't know if war is the right answer. I don't think a lot of wars fought nowadays are for the right reasons. For example, when we got involved in World War II, it was in defense of these people who were being persecuted horribly. There are plenty of examples of wars that the United States have gone to. That's just about money, and that's terrible. So many people died over a money dispute.
Speaker 2:Justin, the United States of America has never made any mistakes. Yeah, go on, zeke.
Speaker 3:So I knew there was a verse I was thinking of and I think this is going to be a point against Justin, as everything seems to be, against Justin, as everything seems to be. But so what? And not just Justin, but okay. So I struggle with this too, of, like you know, you do have the Sermon on the Mount that says turn the other cheek. You have Jesus who, even when he was in the garden and Peter cut off a guy's ear, he tells Peter to put down a sword and he heals the guy's ear. So Jesus's life, it would seem he would be. We don't ever get him, we don't ever have him saying like, hey, go fight these people. We don't have examples of Christ going out and doing these actions, but we do have the Apostle Paul in Romans 13, where he talks about government, and this kind of goes back to what we're talking about. It's like is there a situation where a government can send out people to fight evil? I'll just read what he said. He said in verse 4.
Speaker 2:Romans 13.
Speaker 3:Yeah, romans 13, verse 4. For he is talking about the government, or the rulers in their times. Our version would be the government, for he is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God. And obviously that's where I would start the debate on okay, well, what does it mean to carry out God's wrath? Well, hopefully, most of the time, that doesn't involve killing. However, I think, like Isaac was saying before, there's circumstances where it comes up where that is your last option. You don't have a choice at this point.
Speaker 3:And that goes back to James, where he says true religion is to take care of the widow and the orphan. Well, in their time I mean even now it's still hard for them, but especially in their time they were some of the most helpless people, in the sense like they couldn't get ahead and help themselves. So if people were abusing them, it may come down to where you have to do something you don't want to have to do to take care of them for their safety and their well-being. I think the same goes back to what you said, world War II. We have obvious objective evil forces trying to take over the world obvious objective evil forces trying to take over the world and I don't think it was—I think the government did the right thing. Our government and others who went against them say, hey, we're going to put an end to this evil as a part of God's wrath on them. That doesn't mean God came down and said, hey, I need you to do this. We just looked at it and said, hey, that's evil, we're going to do something about it. So what happens to the Sermon on the Mount then? I think the Sermon on the Mount is more towards the individual life.
Speaker 3:So I would agree more with Justin on this one of like it would be easy for me, I agree, it's easy for me to see, hey, someone's being hurt and harmed, I'm going to go help them, whereas if it's me, I'm going to be less likely to do something about it.
Speaker 3:And obviously there's certain situations, like if someone comes up to my family or, you know, someone points a gun at me, I'm going to do what I can to get out of that situation. But ultimately, like if it's just someone being abusive or you know, jesus never puts us in a situation where or not. Jesus never mentions a situation where someone's literally trying to kill us. However, he does say there are going to be people that try to persecute us and that we're to trust in God and we're to pray for them. But I would trust God in that situation. I'm not opposed to self-defense, but I'm going to be more lenient towards trusting God and trying my best to pray for that person and, as a very, very last resort, I would lean towards that. It would have to be a very extreme circumstance but, to be fair, I don't can't think of a time where I've been put in that situation, so it's not a common thing for my everyday life.
Speaker 2:Now, Isaac, before we started recording, you mentioned a movie with Andrew Garfield that I thought was really interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about that movie?
Speaker 5:So this kid?
Speaker 2:when he was young it's called Hacksaw Ridge.
Speaker 5:Everybody who's listening probably knows of it. Hurt, his brother almost killed him when he was young and so after that he decided to become a pacifist or whatever, to never hurt anybody again. And then he gets drafted or wants to go into the army or something like that and uh goes through it and when they tell him he's got to shoot people, he's like I'm not going to take a gun, I'm just going to go and do my thing and be like a medic or something. So he does and he saves a lot of people. Um, that's basically the gist of the of the movie what was your, you just want to make with that?
Speaker 2:Well in a certain direction. There are people who their way of solving the whole Romans, 13 Matthew, chapter 5 possible dilemma not saying it is, but it could possibly be two passages of scripture against one another.
Speaker 2:Is they say all right, I'm going to go that route. I'm never going to get into any sort of political office. I'm going to be a conscientious objector when it comes to war. I'm not going to be a police officer, and so that way, if I avoid those positions, I can live a pacifistic life, and so that's one way they try to resolve that.
Speaker 5:But if you go about your life that way, like one person here or there can do that, but if you go about your life that way, all these people who are in authority, all these people who are making these decisions, do not have Christian values. If no Christian is in these positions, then we're all just sitting on the sideline over here. And you know, if everybody's going to war and we're just sitting over here, they're going to be like why are you not trying to fight this evil? And the same with government and all that stuff is like oh, all these things are evil, let's create policies to fight it, like abortion and stuff. But if all the Christians are like no, we can't be government officials, we're just going to sit on the side, you're really, I think you're just not doing anything. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:So, okay, I think, maybe, okay, I thought of another example from Jesus where he actually gives a pretty graphic description of how. Now, obviously he doesn't tell us to do this, but I think this is the government could use this as a sense of this would be justified. You possibly could justify government's punishment of those who harm children. When? What did Jesus say? Whenever he said uh, anyone who harms a child deserves what. It would be better for them to be tied to the millstone and drowned right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it would be better for them to be killed than to harm a child. So I think Jesus took seriously like certain crimes and I'm not saying that's the verse, but I'm saying that's a verse that people could use to say there's certain crimes that go too far and people have lost their right to life. And I think that's in the modern era. We've kind of forgotten that like our life is like it's not something that we deserve, it's something that we're given like and it can be taken away in an instant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true, yeah, those are.
Speaker 3:You want to say something.
Speaker 2:Those are all good thoughts and people have wrestled with it. On one end you have pacifism, and then on the other end you have what's called just war theory, where it is okay to fight as long as it's a last resort and other options have been exhausted.
Speaker 4:Maybe that would be. I think that may be more how I would.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because you don't seem like you're just. Oh, there's never a situation, it's all about don't ever like.
Speaker 4:There are certain reasons, like you have to defend yourself or defend others. And again, I never, would ever, trash on like a soldier for doing what they do.
Speaker 2:Because what they do is admirable. So you're going to withdraw your application to Westboro Baptist.
Speaker 4:I guess I'll have to.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, I'm glad this episode is doing good work ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2:All right, so yeah, just different things there that you could walk through. I think the tricky thing is going is sometimes we don't even apply the Sermon on the Mount in the situations that we can. So we're worried, or at least I am. I know, in my thought process I think about all the exceptions and all the extremes. But going back to Jesus's words, most of the time, by definition we're not in an exception, we're not in an extreme. So the Sermon on the Mount, you can say, yeah, it doesn't apply to everything, but do you use it in your day-to-day life for the normal situations? Isaac?
Speaker 5:I would agree with you on that and, like the Bible says, to be peacemakers In everyday life. Most of the time we're not fighting somebody who's doing wrong, right, so we can turn the other cheek. We can forgive, we can do all these things. We can still forgive someone who does something wrong. But I think where pacifism and that would disagree is they're like never, never do anything about it, whereas in your daily life, as a personal Christian, everybody needs to follow the Sermon on the Mount. You know and be a peacemaker in life and try to live peacefully with everybody. But if something happens or if you're put in that situation like a police officer or something, you need to do your duty as a servant of the community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good point. I mean Paul brought that up too. Was it Philippians? I forget, but somewhere you can Google. He said if at all possible, live peaceably with others.
Speaker 3:So that assumes that there's going to be certain situations where people aren't willing to live peaceably with you, and there's been those in history. Like, if you look back at I guess this is on my mind just because of everything that's been going on in the world lately but like, if you look back to I think it was like the 90s, maybe it was sooner, but whenever there were certain sects of Islam taking over certain countries that Christians were in, there was a thing where they could. If they didn't convert to Islam, they would kill them and all they had to do was say hey, you know, I believe in Muhammad, yada, yada, yada. So there's going to be certain situations where there's certain people and it may not even be religious people, it could be anybody that are going to say no, we don't. Peace isn't an option. Either you convert or you die, and if that's the case, like you can't, that's not an option, for peace is what I'm trying to get at. So there's going to be situations where that's not the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just thought of something as y'all were talking about that. But the Bible does say that we don't fight with flesh and blood. I think the difference is we know how sacred life is and how each and every person carries so much worth and they're made in the image of God. But when it comes to wars and, like you said, where we're fighting against evil, it's not necessarily towards that person, even if they are in agreement with it. It's more like, like you said, like the evil forces that we're fighting against, not that person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I heard a good point on this where there was a guy whose dad served in.
Speaker 3:I want to say it was World War I, it was one or two, I can't remember the guy who.
Speaker 3:I guess it was probably one, because the guy who was saying it was kind of old himself and he asked his dad one time he's like you know what was it like?
Speaker 3:Like, uh, you know, fighting in the war against those other guys, and I think that his take on it was probably the attitude that people should have, because it would probably be easy to be scarred from it and just think of them as like a, not a human like you're saying, like they are humans on the other side of every war and some are misled on the wrong ideology. But his dad said he's like all I could think about is that there's going to be some guys going home today or some guys who will never, whose wives and kids will never get to see them again. And I mean they kind of hit the point like there's, these aren't just ideologies, but these are people who are being deceived about these evil things and obviously they are to blame for their own beliefs, but at the same time, like we shouldn't be so hard-hearted towards them to forget that they were made in the image of god, even if they are deceived.
Speaker 2:Yeah and that reminds me of some civil war stories you'd read about where, if the two sides knew there was going to be a battle the next day, like the night before you know, they would kind of get together in parties along the war line, just wherever the camps were situated, and they would trade whatever items, objects, you know, barter, there would be music and you know, maybe some drinking.
Speaker 2:We have Baptists present, so they were drinking ginger ale and Sprite. Baptists present, so they were drinking ginger ale and Sprite. You know anyways, but just they recognize. Hey, tomorrow I'm going to have to shoot at you and we might have to do some awful things, but tonight we can recognize that these were sons, you know just teenage kids and young men, and sometimes older men as well, obviously. And there's a human side to war as well, so you can't forget that too. And so just war is ugly, no matter where you fall on all that.
Speaker 5:Isaac I agree with everything I've said so far.
Speaker 3:Everything you've said so far, hold on.
Speaker 2:Did the devil's advocate?
Speaker 5:make you change your mind. No, no, no. So in In a situation where Christians were being persecuted when Paul was alive, right, they weren't fighting back. Does that make sense, mm-hmm? So why? I get they were fighting back because they were persecuting Christians and all that stuff, but if they were killing people, why wouldn't they fight back?
Speaker 2:So a few things. One, the pacifist, might say because they're not supposed to. So there's the faith side Don't do it because you're not supposed to fight back, Flee or handle the persecution which was at the very beginning of the Christian church. Their numbers were so tiny that any resistance against the Roman Empire would have been futile. So if you're an ant, yeah, you might not like the elephant, but you can't do a whole lot to the elephant. And so there's a practical response of they're not going to think to fight because they're so few in number. Like we read the New Testament, the early church, like Acts, oh, the church is growing. And that's true they were, but overall, compared to the Roman Empire, they were e little, little bitty, whatever English groups of people that couldn't have done much to the empire empire.
Speaker 3:Not only that, but I'm just thinking you can tell me if this is wrong but practically like today, while, yes, it would probably be just as hard for us to fight back against all of the us military, we would probably be better off, like, fighting individual battles, because, like, and for better, for worse, guns exist. So, like, you don't have to be like a trained soldier to be good at fighting. Like all you gotta do is be able to pull a trigger, versus then, like, even if they wanted to fight back, then, like you've got trained soldiers that you're, you would have to somehow defeat all of them by yourself.
Speaker 2:And so there's a practical answer that some people might go with. Yeah, that's a good point, zeke. We have guns now, which makes it a little bit easier, but then the US military has amazing technological capabilities, a lot of which they don't tell the public about. But, yes, that is true. And so just some answers there. Allegedly, allegedly, don't hurt me, and so, anyways, those might be a couple answers. Do either of those sound reasonable to you? Either the pacifistic one or the practicality one? Yeah, the practicality one.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the practicality one kind of sounds.
Speaker 3:but it's like they don't have stories for every situation.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we really don't know. Yeah, but obviously if they did, it wasn't big enough to matter.
Speaker 2:It's very different than in Europe and America today. We're Christians, number in the many millions. Now, all of a sudden, if someone wants to attack us because of our religion, we have families and communities and it's like now. If we wanted to fight now, it would actually. We'd actually be able to protect ourselves.
Speaker 5:But would we? But would we? Should we? Should we If someone's Great question, if someone?
Speaker 3:is.
Speaker 2:That is yes.
Speaker 5:If someone is attacking our faith, should we fight back. Maybe.
Speaker 3:Define attacking our faith.
Speaker 5:Persecuting Christians and killing them just because they're Christians. Define persecution Killing them just because they're Christians.
Speaker 3:What is a?
Speaker 5:woman, a female, an adult female and maybe not. But so what I'm thinking is like maybe they didn't fight back because they were just persecuting them. Does that make sense? And so they were probably like Jesus said, you know, they're not of this world, they're not going to fight Like they were given their life, like Jesus was. But maybe I could see how a could see how pacifists would see that. But then on the other end of like the Hitler debate, where I could see where that's okay to defy him, you know, because of evil going on in the whole world, in there, Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought so killing people tried to kill Hitler yeah yeah, I think I kind of agree with what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Like if it's an attack on me where they say you either deny, we say you know that everyone is made in the image of God, like with the Jews, then it is our responsibility to put it into that like at all possible, if we can.
Speaker 2:So good points, mackenzie, isaac, someone breaks into your home and they say Isaac, I want all your money because that's a secular reason, are you saying oh, I can, I can stop this person. But if the robber breaks into your home and says I'm going to beat you up because you're a Christian, you're at that point You're like well, I guess I can't defend myself, I guess OK so so you would differentiate between secular reasons and specifically for your faith.
Speaker 5:I would say moral and like we are okay with defense, right, we're all okay with defense and helping other people, and y'all said if you saw someone on the street get attacked, you would help them, right, and I agree that is okay. But I think the Christians didn't fight back because they were attacking them for being christians. They were like I mean, why fight back?
Speaker 4:maybe it's just the symbolism that comes from being a martyr in that way yeah, it's just like the power behind that.
Speaker 5:They were attacking them for their faith. So, so why they were like this is glorious that God would choose us to be persecuted, but you do need to defend the weak and the needy and take care of the poor and the orphan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you make a good point of it. It does come to will this glorify God too, like if we see someone getting hurt and we go help them, then what? If they ask, why did you help me? And you say, well, because I believe all, all life has purpose and all life is made in the image of God, then that that's a way you can witness to them. But in the same sense, like you said, if it is a situation where you don't defend yourself and it can also bring glory to God, then then that's all that matters. I think both situations can, if that makes sense. It's just depending on what it is.
Speaker 3:The point we keep circling around? Is it really just depends on?
Speaker 3:the situation and both can equally be good in the sense of, on a personal level, of if I'm being persecuted, like Mackenzie was saying, like I think she was echoing Paul, when Paul's like death, where is your sting? Like we shouldn't be afraid of death, like I should. I know it's still going to, but in reality it really shouldn't bother us because we've got immense things waiting for us on the other side. But at the same time, like while God has us here and he has a plan for us being here, how can we best live out that plan? While he keeps us alive? Because if God wants us dead, he'll use whatever means he needs to to kill us. Or if he wants us alive, he'll use whatever means he needs to to keep us alive. I think of what was his name, mari Mar, is that the? He was the Orthodox preacher who was almost shot during service.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. There's countless other yeah, and the dude stabbed him too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he ended up stabbing him in the eye, but I think someone tried. It was either him or someone else. Someone tried to shoot him and the gun just kept jamming and it's like if God wants him here, god will keep him here Do you Something else about that?
Speaker 4:that was incredible and this I know it's not technically on topic, but just speak on that. What he said, the second that he got up from being stabbed, is everybody was about to go get that man and that guy went no, no, no, no, no, don't kill him, pray for him, pray for him, reign to justice, but pray for him.
Speaker 3:It's amazing, and I think that's a perfect example of there are some people who would go too far and jump to the killing right away, and when I say last resort, I really I think that's a perfect example of last resort. Like it wasn't to the point where he had to kill him, he said I'm safe. Now we've got him, uh, detained. Let's pray for him. Let's, let's look out for this guy pacifists believe you can't hurt anybody, right it's, there are levels, but some would go like no matter what okay.
Speaker 5:So I would say I would say it's okay to hurt to protect, but, like y'all said, killing last resort, like if somebody came to my house I wouldn't immediately shoot them in the head you know, I'd probably try to wound them and yeah, but not saying I'm a great running after you or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you would. Just I would fight that you don't kill them, but you'd hope that you wound them, yeah.
Speaker 5:But I don't remember what else I was going to say. Oh yeah, the Christians were. Do you think it was different because the Christians were being persecuted by the government instead of a random your neighbor over here?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that kind of goes back to what he was saying of like, in a sense, if it's the government attacking you, you're an ant to an elephant like. You can try and fight back all you want, but it's really not gonna do much so I mean, I don't know, that's just practical, I think of all right, good, good thoughts, lots of things to consider.
Speaker 2:Is it? Am I fighting for country, family myself? What are the motivations for the attack? Also, is it the government or is it like just some random stranger off the street attacking me?
Speaker 1:What is my?
Speaker 2:heart. What is my reason for being in the fight or not fighting? Lots of good stuff to think through and consider. I think pacifists they do have some scriptural support, no matter where you land on the conversation. And then there's just war theory and other things to consider. Good conversation. Any other thoughts before we wrap up on the topic, anything y'all want to share? Are you a pacifist?
Speaker 3:No, what's your views, Mr Devil's Advocate.
Speaker 5:Mr Advocate for the Devil.
Speaker 2:So, zeke, what I've? Obviously, justin, I've missed you being on the show and I'm glad whenever you can make it, but typically when you're not in one of the episodes, nobody asks me for my opinion, and I really like that, so I can just facilitate the conversation. Unfortunately, zeke picked up your mantle in this episode and asked me Amen, Amen brother.
Speaker 2:My position on it is God created the world to function a certain way. That's called natural law. So if you want society to flourish, you need peace, you need freedom, you need the government to be doing its job. Zeke read about that in Romans 13. That's kind of the foundational verse for government. Its responsibility is to punish evil and reward good, and part of that means the use of force if necessary. If the government does not use force, if it does not forcefully help a society to be peaceful, it's not doing its job. So when it comes to violence in general, it is okay to use violence to enforce natural law. So, for example, a murderer is breaking one of those laws Don't murder. Because society cannot flourish if people murder. And so the government can use force to enforce it Anyways. So with war, same thing the government's responsible for taking care of its citizens, leading to peace. Paul talks about that in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, I believe Pray for kings and rulers so that there may be peace in the land, so that the gospel may spread. Once the government is enforcing natural law those are the laws by which God made the world then the church is based upon that. The church can then do its job, which is, with freedom, to share the gospel and to love and serve, be a light, be, salt, all the rest of it. So it's kind of like a two pronged approach to the world government and then government does its job and the church Anyways, all that's to say in your personal life, be peaceful. Life be peaceful.
Speaker 2:However, there may come a time and a place where, let's say, with war, you have people invading looking to do great harm. It's okay to pick up arms because evildoers are violating the way God made the world to function and you can be a force for good to set it right. That does not mean you're killing on behalf of your religion. You are never. It is never acceptable to convert or die. Put people into that choice be a christian or I'm going to kill you. We are never allowed to do that. Um, all war is really supposed to be defensive in on behalf of others. So anyway, sorry for the, sorry for the three minute spiel there, but but just on, my force is okay, but never for your faith reasons to make people be a Christian. Anyways, now that that diatribe is over, any other thoughts, comments, questions on the issue?
Speaker 5:Isaac, the Israelites would have fought when someone tried to invade them, right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 5:That's okay.
Speaker 3:They were a theocracy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, isaac, we've never had you finish the show before. Do you want to lead us home? He shakes his head. No, I know Justin's ready, but hold on, justin.
Speaker 3:Zeke no, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Zeke Okay, all right, justin, take us home.
Speaker 4:What is it Blake typically sings?
Speaker 5:Sometimes he sings Creed.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, that's what we got to do. Love you, buddy, thank you.