Copyright © 2006 by Jay B. Gaskill
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First Pray
for
By
Jay B. Gaskill
As a Judeo-Christian,
I firmly believe in the right of the State of Israel to thrive in peace within
defensible borders. As a moral realist, I understand what the actual conditions
of survival entail when you are living amid a sea of resentment-intoxicated
peoples, temporarily unhinged by a malevolent ideology masquerading as a
religion of peace.
Therefore, I must completely dissociate myself from the
pacifist strain of Christianity that has repeatedly called for
These otherwise good hearted souls are deeply confused.
Ambivalence toward the truly evil, and passivity in the face
of the real, existential threats it poses to the good and the innocent souls
among us is so profoundly wrong as to border on evil itself.
The current struggle is far more serious than
I note that Hamas, the terrorist group that infects the nascent Palestinian democracy, has the following explicit aims:
And I cannot help note with a sense of disgust the position of leftist, Noam Chomsky, who visited Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in May.
Professor Chomsky branded the
We have now seen what those weapons can do…
So we should pray for the swift
success of the Israeli Defense Forces in this crisis, for the continued support
of
God save and protect the people of
Copyright © 2006 Jay B. Gaskill
A Personal Footnote:
While I also count myself among the members of the worldwide Anglican Communion, I must nevertheless dissociate myself (with great respect) from the implication of neutrality implied in some of the sentiments recently expressed by Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
I have reproduced the Archbishop’s letter to the Churches in
The Heads of Churches in
Grace and Peace from the Lord
Jesus Christ at this traumatic time for you and the people of
Today, as thousands of foreign
passport-holders are evacuated from
I have been alarmed at the
spiral of violence, the vicious circle of attack and retaliation that has
developed over the last few days. My
prayers and sympathy are with the principal victims, the innocent civilians on
both sides of the border, who now live in terror and are powerless to prevent
the collective suffering at the hands of at the hands of Hizballah
and
the Israeli military. The
distress felt at the destruction not only of life but also the infrastructure
so painstakingly rebuilt after years of conflict will, I know, be acute and
reinforce the sense of helplessness at being caught up in a wider regional
struggle. My condemnation of this resort to violence is unequivocal. I offer you every support in your efforts to
bring it to an end and allow
Remembering the times we have
met, even recently, I look forward to the chance to do so again in calmer times
- either here or in
Although our Christian message
may seem, in these dark days, a small voice in a terrible wilderness of
suffering it is delivered in the confidence that God’s purposes for us and his
people will prevail and that purpose is one of peace, harmony and
reconciliation.
May our Lord Jesus Christ give you, as chief pastors of his flock, every strength and blessing in your ministry.
Comments:
Surely, all civilized peoples who wish to live together in shared peace and freedom will also share the good Archbishop’s compassion for the innocent victims of violence; all will devoutly hope for the return of peaceful times; and all will support the conditions under which there can be “co-existence and solidarity between different religious communities”.
To these sentiments, the response of people of good will
everywhere is a heartfelt amen.
But I must respectfully disaffirm any implication of a moral equivalence between the opposing parties in this life-death struggle:
The Archbishop wrote that “My condemnation of this resort to violence is unequivocal”.
But any effort at “unequivocal condemnation” can become a functional moral equivocation if it appears to place prospective mass murderers and those who take action to prevent the murder of innocents on the same moral plane.
I see an inference of equivalence in the Archbishop’s letter because the condemnation followed a mischaracterization of the Israeli self defense actions as “retaliation”. This is a bit like condemning firefighters who not only contain the immediate flames, but proactively attack the source of the fire in order to forestall even greater devastation. Protection is both more than and less than retaliation.
And the Archbishop’s condemnation was made after having blamed
both sides (apparently equally) for the human damage. The Archbishop wrote that the suffering in
We can’t know whether the implication moral equivalence in
this letter was intended, or was an accident of the language of consolation. In
either case, it gives support to “the pacifist strain of Christianity that has
repeatedly called for
Our Jewish brothers and sisters need to know that many, many Christians do not inhabit the moral universe wherein the sin of having inflicted “collective suffering” belongs equally to “Hizballah and the Israeli military.
As rational, realistic moral agents, we must never deny the essential moral difference between the infliction of evil and the robust defense against evil. I am reminded of one line that is recited daily in dozens of languages on every inhabited continent of the globe from the Christian Baptismal Covenant:
“Q: Will you
persevere in resisting evil? A: I will with God’s help.”
Caveat:
The Archbishop of Canterbury is a serious theologian who has engaged thoughtful discourse about “just war” doctrine. His strong pacific leanings (even as to the war to defeat the terrorist jihad) are the product of deep spiritual refection and scholarly study.
In a public exchange on the topic
with George Weigel (of the Ethics and
“Which brings us to an awkwardness in Weigel’s position. The terrorist, he says, has no aims that can be taken seriously as political or moral. But this is a sweeping statement, instantly challengeable. The terrorist is objectively wicked, no dispute about that, in exercising the most appalling form of blackmail by menacing the lives of the innocent. Nothing should qualify this judgement. But this does not mean that the terrorist has no serious moral goals.”
This is the seed idea, I suspect, from which the flower of Dr Williams’ seeming neutrality has emerged. The exchange is available on line in the journal First Things at http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0403/articles/williamsweigel.html .
Although I am not in agreement with the Archbishop’s reasoning, I respect his moral integrity. But no one seriously questions the moral integrity of George Weigel either; he is a widely read and greatly respected Roman Catholic thinker. I strongly recommend Weigel’s lecture, “Moral Clarity in a Time of War”, as published in First Things, January 2003. George Weigel is not a pacifist. Nor are a majority of lay Christians. “Moral Clarity in a Time of War” is available on line at http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0301/articles/weigel.html .
Jay B. Gaskill
Comments and Caveat are Copyright © 2006 by Jay B. Gaskill,
Attorney at Law
Additional References:
Article by Michael Krauss & J. Peter Pham in Commentary “Why Israel Is Free to Set Its Own Borders” www.jaygaskill.com/CommentaryKraussandPham.pdf
Truman Presidential Library “The Recognition of the State of
[1] Dates: