Wednesday, 10 September 2008
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The Church Can't Justify the A-Bomb
from sirnickdon
Father George Zabelka was the Catholic chaplain to the Catholic pilot who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. Ater many years and much work with ecumenical councils, Father Zabelka reflected on his part in the war.
For the first three centuries, the three centuries closest to Christ, the Church was a pacifist Church. With Constantine the church accepted the pagan Roman ethic of a just war and slowly began to involve its membership in mass slaughter, first for the state and later for the faith.
Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, whatever other differences they may have had on theological esoterica, all agreed that Jesus’ clear and unambiguous teaching on the rejection of violence and on love of enemies was not to be taken seriously. And so each of the major branches of Christianity by different theological methods modified our Lord’s teaching in these matters until all three were able to do what Jesus rejected, that is, take an eye for an eye, slaughter, maim, torture.
It seems a "sign" to me that seventeen hundred years of Christian terror and slaughter should arrive at August 9, 1945 when Catholics dropped the A-Bomb on top of the largest and first Catholic city in Japan. One would have thought that I, as a Catholic priest, would have spoken out against the atomic bombing of nuns. (Three orders of Catholic sisters were destroyed in Nagasaki that day.) One would have thought that I would have suggested that as a minimal standard of Catholic morality, Catholics shouldn’t bomb Catholic children. I didn’t.
I, like that Catholic pilot of the Nagasaki plane, was heir to a Christianity that had for seventeen hundred years engaged in revenge, murder, torture, the pursuit of power and prerogative and violence, all in the name of our Lord.
I walked through the ruins of Nagasaki right after the war and visited the place where once stood the Urakami Cathedral. I picked up a piece of a censer from the rubble. When I look at it today I pray God forgives us for how we have distorted Christ’s teaching and destroyed His world by the distortion of that teaching. I was the Catholic chaplain who was there when this grotesque process, which began with Constantine, reached its lowest point – so far.
Elsewhere, Father Zabelkas came with strong words for ecumenical councils, warning that
It is about time for the Church and its leadership in all denominations to get down on its knees and repent of this misrepresentation of Christ’s words.
Communion with Christ cannot be established on disobedience to His clearest teachings. Jesus authorized none of His followers to substitute violence for love; not me, not you, not Jimmy Carter, not the pope, not a Vatican council, nor even an ecumenical council.
Sadly, I am afraid that the church has gained too much power, and will never willingly follow its Lord in letting it go.
Do you think the church has gone too far with "the pursuit of power and prerogative and violence?"
Read the complete interview with Rev. Zabelka here
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Comments (82)
@sugartomyhoney@xanga - They had no way of knowing the city was about to get nuked. They were warned that there would be an apparent air raid.
@Pickwick12@xanga - Thanks.
@metal_core1@xanga - Thanks.
@Andy - There were several attempts on Jesus' life before he was crucified. Based on your reasoning he shouldn't have resisted or avoided any of them. The apostles are another example (the book of Acts). We all have a time to die (with the rapture exception) but you shouldn't go before your time. God is not anti war. He has killed probably more people than all war has (i.e. the flood). He is not done killing yet. As Christians we are to be led by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8). If he leads us into martyrdom we should go as the Lamb of God did. We shouldn't automatically assume that if we are under personal attack we should surrender to it.
@johnandnancy7@xanga - You said what I was thinking, but much better!
We need to be Spirit-led in each situation because we might be called to fight in one and to surrender as a martyr in another.
I don't really think nuclear conflict had anything to do with the Catholics. It had to do with people desparate to win a war.
@Pickwick12@xanga - "No, I don't in this case. I believe war is necessary and sometimes just. I believe the A-bomb probably prevented years of suffering and death due to protracted conflict."
I actually must disagree with you. I saw Hiroshima firsthand, and I cannot begin to describe the horror and suffering (both physically and emotionally) that we inflicted on the Japanese in a single moment. Nuclear warfare should never ever be condoned by the church. Ever.
The A-bomb may have been necessary to win the war. Was it morally right or just? Probably not. Subjecting innocent women and children (who have no control over their government) to a horrible, painful death is never morally right.
I wrote my own views on nuclear warfare here: http://www.xanga.com/KechiNeko244/671390172/hiroshima.html
Do you remember when John the Baptist was baptising people? The soldier asked, "What must I do to be saved?". John didn't say throw down your sword, he said do not take bribes. Never did he say one had to be a pacifist.
Remember Jesus said just before he was taken prisoner. Carry a weapon and a purse.
Those were all pharaphrased but you know the passages by heart I can safely assume.
It says to obey those in leadership positions and pray for them. For God has put them there.
So I would say many people suffer because of wars. But to lay that soley on The Church and Christians is exactly the kind of persecution the world is blaming us for. Why are wars blamed on Christians and not on nonchristians? Not a bad word is ever mentioned about the attack on Pearl Harbor. What is up with your silence of our enemies atrocities.
'Do you think the church has gone too far with "the pursuit of power and prerogative and violence?"'
I think Christians are hypocrites for following a man of peace and then arguing for "just wars".
@Romans_837@xanga - Wait, wait, the US has never been a Christian nation. It was founded by Deists and populated by, well, whoever the hell wanted to come over. Yes, many of the original colonies were Christian, but given that they couldn't agree on which branch to follow, it's a bit difficult to label the country as 'Christian,' because that implies that people believed the same thing (which they sure as hell didn't).
@Pickwick12@xanga - by God's standard we all "ought to die," since we can't ever possibly meet up to His Glory, but through His grace we have Jesus who had atoned for our shortcomings.
then it would follow that despite the heinous crimes that osama bin laden (or any other criminal) committed, he should be relieved from that penalty and be shown mercy so that it would give him a chance to realize his sins and repent.. and even *gasp* possibly meet Christ. by killing him, we (our government) would deny him the possibility of the Holy Spirit touching his life.
rather than imposing our morals and sense of justice upon another, regardless of how despicable he/she is.. we should know that God's sense of justice is perfect relative to our imperfect perspective. we should leave it to him to make things right.
yes, by our laws and even by our emotions he "ought to die" via. retaliation from our secular government. it would be justice! even by God's Law he "ought to die" as well... but like i said, we're no different...but because of Jesus, no one should "ought to die."
in regards to just wars i'm in the pacifist camp.
i think every human life is precious. how do you justify killing a person? one may say "but it would have saved thousands of lives!" the problem with that is .. you don't know for certain if that person would have gone into a murderous spree or would have pushed a button detonating an atom bomb.
lets say there was a columbine-esque massacre that had occured and the killers had killed X-amount of students. you're one of the students who is witnessing all this and somehow got access to a weapon. you reason that if you stop him (kill him) it would prevent him from killing anyone else. but at that instant, what if the killer (rather than committing suicide like in columbine) realized this was wrong and decided to give up and turn himself in. he wasn't going to kill anymore people, but you don't know that and you decide to attack.
you just denied that person forgiveness, remorse, reflection, chance for repentance,, and ultimately a chance to be saved. lets say you weren't able to kill him, but he sees you, and becomes enraged again... now he kills 20 more people before killing himself.
i suppose i'm making stupid scenarios.. but wars.. especially preemptive ones that our government seems to like cannot be justified.
just because you potentially (key word: potentially) saved thousands, doesn't mean you're still not a murderer.
lol, i say all this now.. but i know since i'm imperfect, when a situation arises, i might forego my intellectual reason and perhaps even my convictions about killing another and react by gut reflex...
@LadyLibellule@xanga - did you know that not all people are the same? *gasp* no way!!!
Did you know that back in the day the highest bidder could become pope? The Catholic Church said that the pope was infallible, which put the pope on the same ground as God. wtf? That's why Martin Luther decided to separate from the CC. Even after that, so called Christians persecuted others and shoved their faith on them. If they had shown love, people would have accepted Christ more readily.
The crusades? Those weren't justified because it was mainly for raping, pillaging, and plundering (aka material/fleshly needs).
The best way to get any "justification" or not is to pray to God for help or a sign (like Gideon did), pray for our leaders (respect authority and bless them since they command you), or simply show God's love and pray/hope for the best. If you give your enemy they're needs (food, clothes, stuff like that), that's a perfect show of love that they will respond to.
The comments on this post are disgusting. I keep reading statements like "Japan started it, we finished it" and "That bomb saved millions of lives."
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT, CIVILIAN LIVES. And it wasn't just a quick death for all. The extreme disfigurement of the survivors caused by the bomb were probably worse than death. Innocent people, CHILDREN included, suffered unimaginable pain because of that bomb. IT IS SICK how anyone could say that bomb saved lives, or that it was for the better.
KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE IS NEVER JUSTIFIED.
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THINK FOR YOURSELVES. Don't let some book dictate your own morality. Don't conform to the masses.
For me, there is only one golden rule when it comes to morality: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
@captain_awesome__o@xanga - unless the church stands against acts of violence against the innocent then the church is part of the problem. not just the catholic church, but any faith or religious community. the overall point of the article is that military violence has been a part of church history since the middle ages or even earlier. sitting idly by or even participating in violence against innocent people is a way of condoning or even supporting this violence.
and for others who say the a-bomb was necessary, could you pull the trigger to kill an innocent person? in the world i live in, the end doesn't justify the means. i think this is what Zabelka is trying to say here.
i've never viewed Christianity as a pacifistic religion. jeez, look at the Old Testament... God adores war.
@aznLegacy@xanga - I agree we all ought to die; however, I believe that in the case of someone taking life, human government has the authority to kill that person.
I'll agree to disagree. Thanks for the thoughtful response. It made me think.
@Pickwick12@xanga - There is definitely room for respectful disagreement as to whether dropping the bomb was a good pragmatic decision or not, but nobody looking at the historical record can deny that Japan was already prepared to surrender before the decision was made to bomb Hiroshima - let alone Nagasaki.
This isn't specifically a pacifist issue - it a just war issue. A Christian can be prepared to violently defend their home, or defend their country in combat, and still yield to a general morality. We don't terrorize the enemy by threatening their children, we minimize civilian casualties. Only, in the case of WWII, more civilians than combatants were killed, and more through 'routine' air raids than through the use of atomic weaponry. In short, we can condemn the gross injustice of bombing non-military targets (Cities! Filled with civilians!) without subscribing wholesale to taking Jesus' words on nonviolence literally.
@Romans_837@xanga - I think the implication in all of this is that Christians shouldn't rule a country. When we look at Romans 12 and 13 as a single unit (Paul didn't decide where the chapters ended), we see that Paul says that Christians aren't to take revenge (i.e. wield the sword), but are to love and leave vengeance to the Lord. And then we see that God has instituted government to wield the sword. I think the strong implication is that Christians are not to engage in the government's work - in this case, to build or drop the bomb.
Again, I don't think this requires one to be a pacifist, but I think a calculated commitment to New-Testament ethics is in order.
@Pass_the_Aura@xanga - But isn't there a sense in which the church loses some of its moral authority by its very complicity? Not that it could have dissuaded Truman (though who knows?), but it could have made its position honest and clear? A real problem that ecumenical councils in particular, and the protestant churches in general, face is that they basically say anything goes when it comes to war. They support those who conscientiously object, and they bless those who participate even in wars that don't conform the Augustine's "just war" ideals. It's all very slippery and political, and denies the communal view of the church that the New Testament assumes.
@captain_awesome__o@xanga - With the exception of the Mexican-American war, which war has the church not wholeheartedly supported? Sure, a few Mennonite communities will be opposed to any armed conflict, but the mainline protestant and Catholic churches have baptized every war America has fought.
-NDSR
@johnandnancy7@xanga - Don't confuse nonviolent resistance (which Andy seems to be advocating based on the example of Jesus' life and the apostles') with total submission.
@bubbadirt@xanga - Can I say, first of all, that I am so happy that someone has finally brought scripture into this. So many people saying, "Well, dropping the bomb makes sense because..." I am glad that you see that right and wrong are rooted in scripture first.
There is a very small amount of tension in the New Testament as to whether violence is permissible or not. There is more tension in the case of divorce, actually, than there is in violence. For the most part, the New Testament is categorically situated against violence, and anyone reading it for the first time without bias would assume that any NT believer would be a pacifist.
You brought up most of the passages that seem to speak against that. First, there is Jesus talking about swords. In Mt. 10, Jesus says, "Don't think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." Clearly the context here, though, is that the Christian's life is not made peaceful in following Christ. As in the passage that says, "The word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword," the symbol is not one of violence, but division, in this case division of families and communities, who will persecute those who follow Christ. If there's a literal sword envisioned, the Christians will be at the sharp end of it, not wielding it. Basically, expect opposition.
You referenced Luke 22, where Jesus said, "The one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one." But the disciples reply, "Look, we have two swords" and Jesus says, "That is enough." The question is, is he saying that two swords among his eleven apostles is going to be enough to defend them from the Roman guard? Or is he saying, "Enough, already," that they don't understand the figure of speech he was using, saying that the world will no longer be a friendly place. The answer, of course, comes later in the chapter (vv. 49-51) when Peter actually uses one of the swords, and Jesus says, "No more of this," and heals the slave. Peter, it seems, had misunderstood the sword.
There's also the temple incident. I won't get into detail, but suffice to say that many exegetes do not consider it an endorsement of violence, and that the "whip," which John mentions, is used to chase out livestock. What else would you use? The taking of the temple is actually much closer to something MLK or Gandhi would do than something a supporter of violence would.
Finally, you have the fact that soldiers in the NT are routinely commended. There is yours, talking to John the Baptist, and Pickwick12's, who has Jesus heal his servant. You also have the centurion at the foot of the cross in Mark's gospel, the first human in Mark to call Jesus the Son of God. The presence of all these soldiers seems to indicate, against everything Jesus and Paul spoke, that service in the army went uncondemned by the writers of the NT.
For the most part, I think the figure in much the same way that tax-collectors and prostitutes do (sometimes representatives of those groups are told to change their ways; others, it is assumed - since the church for the first 300 years after Christ was pacifist, in all these cases the readers were free to assume what went unwritten). Precisely because they were Roman soldiers, they served to illustrate the power of the word of God to reach the unlikeliest people.
The role of serving in the military simply wasn't being discussed in the communities for which the NT was written; hence there was no need to make that particular point. It's fairly analogous to the statement "Truly I tell you that the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you [the Pharisees];" the assumption is that there is a conversion there as well. (Although it is true that the NT never explicitly condemns serving in the military, so I cannot condemn it either.)
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And why is there no bad word for the attack of Pearl Harbor, or any other act of war not mentioned? Because we already expect the world to act like the world. But it's surprising when those following the good shephard take up the weapons of the world.
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Again, please don't take this to mean that I think poorly of you. Having read over your comments during the weeks I've been on revelife, I think very highly of you. We can disagree about these things and still regard each other well; as long as we disagree well. But I still think you're wrong.
-NDSR
@LadyLibellule@xanga - Please bear in mind, not ALL Christians blindly go to war. Entire communities (Mennonites, Church of God, anabaptists, German pietists) have refused to go support wars, often to the point of withholding war taxes. During WWII, 1 in 6 prisoners in the U.S. were conscientious objectors, and the majority of them were doing it in following a man of peace.
@Incredible_Edible_Niffer@xanga - I am so glad that you commented. I am amazed at the capacity for people to make the horror of war and killing into abstractions, and to say, "Well, their deaths were worth it for this reason." War is an absolute horror, and even though I know my protest won't stop anyone, I at least can refuse to bear a weapon.
However, the fact is that you have to let SOMETHING dictate your morals. If you base your morals simply in reason, then you CAN say that some innocent deaths are worth it. Natural morality is an ugly thing. But by basing our morals in the life of Christ and the community of the church, we can find a place to stand outside the morass.
-NDSR
@Andy -
As far as self-defense goes, what do you think about Luke 22:36-38, and the idea that Jesus was generally fine with the disciples carrying swords? Surely the purpose of carrying swords in those times was for self-defense. If Jesus so staunchly opposed this action, then surely he would have never condoned the carrying of swords, right?
@Incredible_Edible_Niffer@xanga - I completely agree. I went to the Peace Memoiral Museum in Hiroshima last month. There were wax figures of what people looked like after the bomb went off. They were all bloody and their skin was melting off. No one who saw such a thing could possibly say that the A-bomb was morally right. And no one can say that those deaths that we caused were OK because they "saved lives". You cannot justify preventing suffering on one side by causing mass suffering on another. It is disgusting and inhuman to say that we were justified in killing thousands of women and children in such a way.
The Church is Christ's presence and continued work on earth. Christ preached the Gospel. So does the Church. It isn't the function of the Church to justify the A-Bomb. That dirty, nasty job belongs to mankind.
One of the dilemas of war is that it makes good people do things that are better left unsaid and forgetten (if only!). For a property of war is that the enemy must be annihilated. So within the sphere of war, insanity reigns because superior brutality is what wins the day.
Sane people cannot comprehend war but many insist on passing judgement on decisions that were made to end the insanity of war in the quickest way. That's a mistake for it shows haughty arrogance and ultimately a lack of basic morality and compassion.
BTW, the good priest in the story sounds like he has some severe psychological problems.
You are very right.
If you read the words of Jesus, it's clear that he hated violence. All violence. He led a beautiful life and died a violent death to show us how we are both to live and die. He says in Matthew 5:39, "Do not resist an evil person." If someone does evil to you - you cannot respond with evil. If you do,
you are no different from the one who began the evil to begin with.
People who call themselves followers of Jesus, yet who seek out power in their government are serving two masters. Jesus never asked his followers to create a 'christian' government. Christians were meant to live their lives outside the 'world of man' and immerse themselves in the 'world of Christ'. I'm not saying that Christian's should not serve in government, I think they should if that's where God wants them. But when they're primary drive becomes a thirst for power, it becomes sick and twisted and very wrong.
Sin comes from the heart.