I’m reluctant to admit this, but it’s a plain fact of my own experience that many sincere Christians and other religious people I know are decidedly pro-war, pro-killing, pro-violence, and perhaps even pro-torture. This saddens me greatly and regularly, especially since such sentiments are diametrically opposed to plain teaching of the Lord Jesus:
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. (Luke 6:27-35)
Are these words of Jesus to be taken seriously or not? If so, how can a follower of Christ advocate or support the execution of modern warfare, especially when so many of those who end up getting killed (cynically called “collateral damage”) are human beings created b’tzelem elohim – in the image of God?
Christian: Spare me your rationalizations. You are either going to obey Jesus on this point or not. Please don’t regurgitate the propaganda about “terrorists at the gate,” or speak about the validity of a “just war” or any nahrishkeit about “obeying your leaders.” Jesus simply wasn’t thinking in these terms regarding such questions.
Billy Graham might have been a fine evangelistic preacher, but who knew that he also hobnobbed with the power elite in this country as an armchair military advisor? War is an ugly thing – a sacrilege of life. It is disturbing to think that Mr. Graham could regularly preach about Jesus’ love and sacrifice for the sake of others while also advocating the use of napalm and other instruments of cruelty upon his fellow man.
So here’s an excerpt from an article about a newly published book regarding Rev. Billy Graham and his propensity for advocating for war:
“The Rev. Billy Graham, a darling of the Evangelical Right, has never seen a U.S. war that he couldn’t bless. He once advocated that President Richard M. Nixon bomb the “dikes” in the north of Vietnam. He also criticized the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. for speaking out against the war. A new book, “The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire,” by Cecil Bothwell exposes the camera-mugging preacher as a serial warmonger.”Bothwell documents that there wasn’t a war the U.S. was involved in that Rev. Graham couldn’t bless. In fact, he reveals that during the horrific Vietnam conflict, (1959-75), he had urged the then-President, Richard M. Nixon, to bomb North Vietnam! In a 13-page letter that Rev. Graham had forwarded to the White House in April, 1969, it was stated:
There are tens of thousands of North Vietnamese defectors to bomb and invade the North. Why should all the fighting be in the South?… Especially let them bomb the dikes which could over night destroy the economy of North Vietnam.
Mr. Bothwell underscored that such a military action against the dikes, a huge complex of earthworks, would probably “kill a million people and wipe out an already poor nation’s agricultural system” He added that the advice in Graham’s transmittal “fell on receptive ears. Not longer after, Nixon moved the air war north and west.”
There is more. After the deadly Kent State U. affair (May 4, 1970), where four students who were protesting the Nixon-Henry Kissinger-inspired bombing of Cambodia were killed by Ohio’s National Guard troops, Rev. Graham invited Nixon to address his crusade. It was held in Knoxville, TN. While parents of the students were still grieving and burying their dead, Rev. Graham shamelessly shilled: “All Americans may not agree with the decision a president makes–but he is our president…”
Read more here.