On Gospel Opportunity in Post-Christendom America and the Abandonment of a Constantinian Worldview

The following is an excerpt from chapter one of Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989):

Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began.... When and how did we change? One of us is tempted to date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state's time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater opened on Sunday....

That evening has come to represent a watershed in the history of Christendom, South Carolina style. On that night, Greenville, South Carolina - the last pocket of resistance to secularity in the Western world - served notice that it would no longer be a prop for the church.... The Fox Theater went head to head with the church over who would provide the world view for the young. That night in 1963, the Fox Theater won the opening skirmish.

You see, our parents had never worried about whether we would grow up Christian. The church was the only show in town. On Sundays, the town closed down. One could not even buy a gallon of gas. There was a traffic jam on Sunday mornings at 9:45, when all went to their respective Sunday schools. By overlooking much that was wrong in the world - it was a racially segregated world, remember - people saw a world that looked good and right.... Church, home, and state formed a national consortium that worked together to instill "Christian values...."

A few years ago, the two of us awoke and realized that, whether or not our parents were justified in believing this about the world and the Christian faith, nobody believed it today. At least, almost nobody.... A few may still believe that by electing a few "Christian" senators, passing a few new laws, and tinkering with the federal budget we can form a "Christian" culture.... But most people know this view to be touchingly anachronistic. All sorts of Christians are waking up and realizing that it is no longer "our world" - if it ever was....

We [the authors] believe the world has been changed but that change did not begin when the Fox Theater opened on Sunday. The world was fundamentally changed in Jesus Christ, and we have been trying, but failing, to grasp the implications of that change ever since. Before the Fox Theater opened on Sunday, we could convince ourselves that, with an adapted and domesticated gospel, we could fit American values into a loosely Christian framework, and we could thereby be culturally significant. This approach to the world began in 313 (Constantine's Edict of Milan) and, by our reckoning, ended in 1963....

The demise of the Constantinian world view, the gradual decline of the notion that the church needs some sort of surrounding "Christian" culture to prop it up and mold its young, is not a death to lament. It is an opportunity to celebrate. The decline of the old, Constantinian synthesis between the church and the world means that we American Christians are at last free to be faithful in a way that makes being Christian today an exciting adventure [emphasis added]....

And we believe that recognition signals a seismic shift in the world view of our church, which makes all the difference in the world for how we go about the business of being the church. Now our churches are free to embrace our roots, to resemble more closely...a faith community that does not ask the world to do what it can only do for itself. What we once knew theologically, we now know experientially: Tertullian was right - Christians are not naturally born in places like Greenville or anywhere else. Christians are intentionally made by an adventuresome church....

The project of theology since the Enlightenment...has been, How do we make the gospel credible to the modern world?... Schleiermacher's project of making the faith credible to Christianity's "cultured despisers" was adopted by everyone.... Modern interpreters of the faith have tended to let the "modern world" determine the questions and therefore limit the answers.... We have come to see that this project, though well intentioned, is misguided.... By the very act of our modern theological attempts at [cultural] translation [and, therefore, integration], we have unconsciously distorted the gospel and transformed it into something it never claimed to be - ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with his people.

The belief, on which much apologetics tends to be based, is that everyone must believe in something. This is the Constantinian assertion that religious belief is unavoidable. Constantine knew that, in order to keep the Empire afloat, if people were no longer classically pagan, they would have to be made imperially Christian.... Our best minds were enlisted in the Constantinian enterprise of making the faith credible to the powers-that-be so that Christians might now have a share in those powers. Apologetics is based on the political assumption that Christians somehow have a stake in transforming our ecclesial claims into intellectual assumptions that will enable us to be faithful to Christ while still participating in the political structures of a world that does not yet know Christ. Transform the gospel rather than ourselves....

We believe that Christianity has no stake in the utilitarian defense of belief as belief. The theological assumption that Christianity is a system of belief must be questioned. It is the content of belief that concerns Scripture, not eradicating unbelief by means of a believable theological system. The Bible finds uninteresting many of our modern preoccupations with whether or not it is still possible for modern people to believe. The Bible's concern is whether or not we shall be faithful to the gospel, the truth about the way things are now that God is with us through the life, cross, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.... The theologian's job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world, but to make the world credible to the gospel....

Christianity is more than a matter of a new understanding. Christianity is an invitation to be part of an alien people who make a difference because they see something that cannot otherwise be seen without Christ. Right living is more the challenge than right thinking....

The ethical results of our inadequate theology had global implications. On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on a Japanese city. Turning to a group of sailors with him on the battle cruiser Augusta, President Truman said, "This is the greatest thing in history." Truman, once described as "an outstanding Baptist layman," was supported by the majority of American Christians, who expressed few misgivings about the bomb. The bomb, however, was the sign or our moral incapacitation, an open admission that we had lost the will and the resources to resist vast evil.

The American church had come a long way to stand beside Harry Truman in 1945. Just a few years earlier, in 1937, when Franco's forces bombed the Spanish town of Guernica, killing many civilians, the civilized world was shocked.... President Roosevelt issued an urgent appeal to all governments, at the beginning of World War II, saying, "The bombing of helpless and unprotected civilians is a strategy which has aroused the horror of all mankind...."

What had begun as the acts of ruthless Fascist dictators had become the accepted practice of democratic nations. Few Christians probably even remember that there was a time when the church was the voice of condemnation for such wantonly immoral acts....

Obliteration bombing of civilian populations had come to be seen as a military necessity. A terrible evil had been defended as a way to a greater good [which is not an example of a Christian, but rather a secular, utilitarian ethic]. After the bomb, all sorts of moral compromises were easier - nearly two million abortions a year seemed a mere matter of freedom of choice, and the plight of the poor in the world's richest nation was a matter of economic necessity.

The project, begun at the time of Constantine, to enable Christians to share power without being a problem for the powerful, had reached its most impressive fruition. If Caesar can get Christians there [in pre-WWII Germany] to swallow the "Ultimate Solution," and Christians here to embrace the bomb, there is no limit to what we will not do for the modern world. Alas, in leaning over to speak to the modern world, we had fallen in. We had lost the theological resources to resist, lost the resources even to see that there was something worth resisting....

That which makes the church "radical" and forever "new" is not that the church tends to lean toward the left [or right] on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus whereas the world does not. In the church's view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right; both sides tend toward solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun in Jesus....

Each age must come, fresh and new, to the realization that God, not nations, rules the world. This we can know, not through accommodation, but through conversion. As Barth noted, sanctification and justification go hand in hand. We cannot understand the world until we are transformed into persons who can use the language of faith to describe the world right....

The reason we Christians must forever be letting go of our Constantinian assertions is that we are forever forgetting how decisive, how eschatological, is the event of Christ....

[In 1963], a world, constructed and kept secure since Constantine, collapsed. Everything needed to be reexamined, and the failure of the old answers, seen now more clearly by the glow of furnaces at Dachau and the fires of Hiroshima, demanded new questions. The world had shifted....

Our aim is to challenge those assumptions and to show what a marvelous opportunity awaits those pastors and laity who sense what an adventure it is to be the church, people who reside here and now, but who live here as aliens, people who know that, while we live here, "our commonwealth is in heaven."

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A Philosophy for Biblical Counseling in Local Church Ministry

Biblical counseling is one of the most critical functions of the pastor in a local church ministry context. Pastors that neglect the personal counseling aspect of their ministry will certainly end up with a congregation that is filled with more hurt and spiritual immaturity than if they had fulfilled their nouthetic role of placing and specifically applying God-breathed, biblical truth into the minds of the people entrusted to them. While it is true that a public preaching ministry should edify, rebuke, exhort, admonish, confront, and comfort, it is also true that many people simply need personal, one-on-one care and guidance in how to apply specific pieces of biblical truth in times of crisis, pain, and upheaval in their lives.

At times such as this, the proclamation of general biblical truth may not attach in a way that leads them to greater levels of Christ-likeness. Hurting people often need someone to “incarnate” into their lives and come alongside them to lovingly lead them by the hand to an understanding of what it looks like to live a sanctified and holy life through Christ for the glory of God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. This type of life-on-life incarnational ministry cannot be realized in its fullness when the only time that the congregant hears the pastor speaking biblical truth into his or her heart is for thirty minutes from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. Most people can access that type of ministry on their television, laptop, or iPhone without ever getting up from their couch.

The Bible appears to present the role of nouthetic counselor as one that can be fulfilled, at least in part, by believers. Rom. 15:14 (ESV) states, “I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct [νουθετειν, or nouthetein, a cognate of noutheteo, from which the English word “nouthetic” is derived] one another.” This is the verse that Jay E. Adams cites as the inspiration for the title of his foundational work Competent to Counsel. At the least, this verse points to Paul’s confidence in the knowledge and wisdom of believers in the ancient Roman church to instruct or “admonish” (NASB) one another. While I do not believe that this statement about the spiritual maturity of the ancient Roman believers carries over in its entirety and applies to all of the Christians of our time, I do believe that Spirit-indwelt believers have a God-given ability and capacity to confront, exhort, rebuke, and comfort one another to various degrees. The strength and effectiveness of such counseling will depend heavily on the counselor’s familiarity with God’s Word in its entirety, his or her degree of sanctification, his or her past counseling experience, his or her theological training, his or her relational abilities, and his or her spiritual gifting.

While such statements may cut slightly against the grain of the commonly held belief (in nouthetic counseling circles) that “any Christian can counsel,” I do not find that any of them can be practically or pragmatically denied by anyone with experience in this area. I too believe that “any Christian can counsel.” However, I simply don’t believe that every Christian can (or should) counsel without adequate time in the faith (which brings wisdom), without adequate knowledge of the meta-narratives and themes of the entirety of God’s Word (which militates against an inchoate, narrow theological view and improper application of the Scriptures), without basic hermeneutical training (which militates against the misuse of God’s Word in application to the life and circumstances of the counselee), and without adequate instruction on how to counsel biblically (which militates against disjointed or harmful counseling methodology). If 1 Corinthians 12 teaches us anything, it is that “there are varieties of gifts” within the body of Christ. My contention is that some Christians are gifted to counsel others effectively in a way that some are not. “For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:8). Not all within the body of Christ are equally “competent to counsel.”

The pastor should be diligent to do everything in his power to ensure his competence in the area of biblical counseling. To his flock he owes nothing less than excellence in this area. If he finds himself lacking in his ability to nouthetically speak biblical truth into the lives and hearts of those whom the Chief Shepherd has entrusted into his care, he should seek further training and skill in this area in order to maximize the pastoral gifts that have been entrusted to him by the Father.

I believe it to be neither right nor biblical for the pastor to consistently and constantly refer his people elsewhere for counseling. Neither do I believe it to be right for the pastor to hand off this critical duty to his congregation and tell everyone that they should seek to work out their deep-seated and crippling long-term spiritual problems amongst themselves. While at some level there should be mutual exhortation and encouragement constantly going on within the flock, the main responsibility for the “care” and spiritual health of the flock falls upon the shoulders of the Holy Spirit-appointed επισκοπος, or “overseer” (Acts 20:28).

I agree with Adams and others in their argument that Freud and his disciples have trespassed into the spiritual territory that only a well-armed shepherd of God should occupy (cf. 2 Cor. 10:3-5). The care of souls is something that only a Spirit-indwelt person can attend to. Remedy for the devastation caused in human hearts and lives by the enslaving power of sin can never be found in highly speculative and theoretical realms of secular psychiatry or psychoanalysis, but only in the power of the spoken and applied Word of God. This being said, I have no quarrel with believers who seek out the help and guidance of professional Christian counselors, so long as these men and women are adhering to a biblical, nouthetic approach to counseling and not practicing a mish-mash of secular psychology that is sprinkled here and there with Bible verses in order to make it “Christian.”

The foundation upon which the nouthetic pastor’s entire counseling ministry is based is the Bible. The young pastor Timothy was reminded by the apostle Paul, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). A nouthetic ministry of “teaching,” “reproof,” “correction,” and “training” by the Holy Scriptures has God-breathed power behind it. This is what makes nouthetic counseling far more effective in bringing about real change and solutions in people’s lives than secular or pseudo-Christian models of counseling. The power of our ministry lies not in our conversational craftiness or clever psychological (and highly theoretical) methodology but rather, in the power of His eternal and steadfast Word. It is the power of God’s Word that is able to break, mold, shape, and change the hearts of stubborn and rebellious sinners, not our words and psycho-theories. It is the heart of the counselee that lies at the center of our counseling efforts. Our goal is not for mere external conformity to biblical standards of Christian behavior; our goal is the transformation of the “inner man” of the counselee into the image and likeness of our Savior. Equipped with God’s Word, the nouthetic pastor should be ever working toward greater and greater levels of sanctification both in his own life and in the lives of those who he has been called to shepherd.

In any counseling ministry, it is critical that the counselee understand the sin dynamic in his or her own heart and life. James states, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (Jam. 1:14-15). These verses explain the internal dynamic between our desires (which can quickly become heart idols), sin, and the personal destruction that occurs when we live lives that are separate and disconnected from our Creator and Redeemer. The teaching in James is that our primary problem lies within our own hearts. We go astray when we are “tempted” and “lured” and “enticed” by our own heart desires. The remnants of our old nature, or σαρξ (“flesh”), are still with us. The nouthetic pastor’s responsibility is to teach his people that our internal habits, inclinations, tendencies, and desires are all bent away from God in Christ. To varying degrees, this will be the case until the day when we meet Him face-to-face. It is only at the time of our glorification that we will no longer have to do battle with the remnants of the “old self” (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9).

It is also important that the pastor give his people hope in this battle through the power of the gospel. It is the gospel that both confronts the sinner in his sin and provides the grace, comfort, and assurance of forgiveness for sins forsaken. It is the gospel that promises, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Prov. 28:13). A balanced, gospel-centered nouthetic ministry helps to prevent both antinomian and legalistic approaches to sanctification. The gospel is a two-edged sword that cleaves through the sinful heart of the antinomian with confrontation and the sinful heart of the legalist with compassion. It is in this way that the very same gospel can sanctify and rejuvenate the hearts of hardened sinners on both sides of God’s law.

Although I believe that nouthetic counseling is a necessary and critical pastoral function, I also believe that it is just as important that a pastor not take on too much responsibility in this area. By agreeing to counsel more people than he can effectively minister to, the well-intentioned pastor can easily burn himself out and devote too large a block of his time to this area of ministry. Counseling relationships can be very intense and require large amounts of emotional energy and preparation time that are needed for other areas of ministry, such as administrative duties, sermon preparation, congregational events, weddings, funerals, hospital visitation, mercy ministries, youth ministries, and general oversight. I find it extremely difficult to believe that a pastor can really know and effectively shepherd more than fifty to one hundred people at a time. I find it just as difficult to believe that a pastor with a multiplicity of vocational responsibilities can effectively counsel more than five to ten people at once. If more congregants than this need and desire nouthetic counseling, the pastor should begin to seek out other alternatives rather than indiscriminately agree to take on counselee after counselee. One alternative possibility is the implementation of a program of lay counseling by mature and qualified believers. To ensure excellence and a consistency of theology and methodology, the pastor must exercise stringent oversight of any such program. Another possibility is referral to another qualified and competent nouthetic counselor who practices in another ministry.

Further, I believe it to be of primary importance that the pastor focuses his counseling energies on those within his congregation. While I think that there can be some value in using counseling as an outreach tool to help hurting people come to Christ, I believe that a pastor can easily wind up expending much of his energies devoting time to those who are not of the household of faith. If the primary mandate for the shepherd is “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13), then the pastor must keep a close watch on how much time he devotes to counseling unregenerate people outside of his flock. In the process of emptying his limited pastoral energy into the lives of those outside of his congregation, he may be guilty of overlooking problems that are forming and stirring in the lives of those specifically entrusted by God into his watchcare. In this, as in all matters of vocational ministry, pastoral discernment should be utilized and attendance given to a proper balance.

Special care should be given and certain precautions taken regarding the counsel of women. Due to the emotional and physiological dynamics involved, I do not believe that pastors should counsel women alone, ever. There is simply too much at stake, not only in the lives of those involved, but for the reputation and testimony of the church and the office of the pastorate in general. Paul states, “We must not indulge in sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 10:8). For pastors who don’t believe that sexual immorality is a possibility for them during the intimate and private counsel of women, Paul’s statement a few verses later should help to serve as a corrective: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). When counseling married women, the pastor should have the counselee agree to arrange to have her spouse present for the sessions. If the counselee is unmarried, a deaconess or other respected and mature woman from the congregation can sit in during this time. Such precautionary measures are easy to implement and will ensure pastoral and counselee integrity during these encounters, for the good of all involved and the larger body of Christ in general.

Nouthetic counseling is a direct incarnational ministry channel that God uses to pour out His majestic grace for the purpose of bringing positive, Christ-centered, biblical change to people’s hearts and lives. Pastors may not lay aside this critical conduit of the grace of God, but instead should confidently embrace their charge to counsel and “admonish” (νουθετω, or noutheto) their flock as their own “beloved children” (1 Cor. 4:14).

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Review of Tripp's "Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands"

The following is a short review of Paul David Tripp's Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002):

The basic premise of Tripp’s book is that all Christians, by the very nature of their calling, are “instruments” in the hands of a redeeming Lord that desires to use them to lovingly and sacrificially minister to and counsel those around them for the purpose of mutual sanctification and transformation into the image of Jesus Christ.

The first six chapters of the book lay the foundation that Christ has come to save us from worshipping false gods and ourselves so that we may worship Him in spirit and in truth. Such a turning results in people that formerly lived for themselves who now rely exclusively on His sovereignty and grace and live for His glory (35). The mission of every Christian servant is to “teach, admonish, and encourage one another” to focus on and live for these things. The remainder of the book focuses on “how to live as an ambassador” for Christ (108). The practical ambassadorial model that Tripp formulates is shaped around the ministerial aspects of loving, knowing, speaking, and doing.

Loving includes entering the person’s world, welcoming them by incarnating the love of Christ, identifying with suffering, and accepting with agenda (126, 331). Knowing includes organizing information about counselees into “biblical categories” and understanding their struggles (194, 331). Speaking includes confronting and comforting with the Scriptures (200, 331). Doing helps the counselee to apply God’s agenda to their everyday lives (244, 331).

The strength of the book is that it recognizes and encourages the role that each Christian has to incarnate into the lives of those around them, bringing biblical counsel in the power of the Holy Spirit. All too often, Christians cower from their responsibility to bring rebuke, counsel, and comfort to other believers.

A weakness is that this book seems to be a bit too long and detailed for lay ministry. Even though states that this work is written for all Christians, it appears to be written mostly for the pastoral or professional Christian counselor. This is especially evident in the second half of the book and in the appendix. Although Scripture does call all believers to encourage and exhort one another, I have found that there are few that are spiritually gifted enough to do this in the structural pastoral manner and fashion that Tripp outlines. While the priesthood of all believers is a biblical truth and reality, it is equally true that not all within the body of Christ are specifically gifted enough (or even biblically knowledgeable enough) to effectively counsel people’s deepest sin patterns and lifestyles. For instance, not all believers are capable enough to assign and evaluate homework and essay assignments to other Christians. This doesn’t speak to a deficiency in the body of Christ, but is an observation that not all Christians are similarly gifted (1 Cor. 12).

With all that being said, this book is a tremendous tool and resource for nouthetic counselors, and it provides much insight and guidance to all Christians on incarnational ministry within the body of Christ.

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Barriers to Serving the Poor - Partiality

It is my firm belief that service to the poor is not some special spiritual “calling,” but a normative part of the Christian life, just like attending church or praying or reading your Bible. So why aren’t more Christians involved in caring for the poor? One reason I’ve encountered is ignorance. We discussed this point previously.

Ignorance tends to breed stereotyping, which breeds prejudice, which breeds partiality.

Partiality is the practice of favoritism. It is an act of the will that transcends the stereotypes and prejudices of our mind.

Let’s see what partiality looked like in the first century church:

James 2:1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

In our time, we also have “dishonored the poor man” (v. 6). This “dishonoring” manifests itself in the omission of regular and consistent acts of basic Christian compassion toward others who are in great need of such ministry.

In this, we too are guilty of “committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”

Like the early church, we also are guilty of showing partiality toward our weaker brothers and sisters by refusing to do what we can to come alongside them and encourage them in the Lord. It seems that Christians are frequently too busy disputing amongst themselves over minor and relatively obscure points of doctrine, or too busy pouring all of their energy back into their own congregations to help their poor brothers and sisters who remain outside the walls of our oases of Christian sanctuary.

May God give us eyes to see our weaker brethren as He sees them. May this motivate us to love and service and the elimination of partiality in our midst, by the power of His Holy Spirit.

See also: "Barriers to Serving the Poor - Ignorance."

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The Christian and Warfare: A Discourse on the Relationship Between the Cross and the Sword

The following is part of a much larger body of work that I'm currently working on.

Forty years after having served as a chaplain with the U.S. Air Force and given his blessing on the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, George Zabelka made these statements:

For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie…. As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang "Praise the Lord" and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar…. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.[1]

Is Zabelka’s analysis and reflection on war and the Christian faith biblically informed? Or has he merely “gone soft,” as is often the charge regarding Christians who become pacifistic in their beliefs and outlook? On the urgency of answering these questions, I agree with C. John Cadoux, who, in 1919, stated:

Among the many problems of Christian ethics, the most urgent and challenging at the present day is undoubtedly that of the Christian attitude to war. Christian thought in the past has frequently occupied itself with this problem; but there has never been a time when the weight of it pressed more heavily upon the minds of Christian people than it does today.[2]

This brief essay will examine the relationship between the Christian and the institutionalized violence of warfare in an attempt to discover whether or not today’s commonly held and socially legitimized evangelical view of the “Christian soldier” can be supported by a biblical new covenant ethic.

In order to determine our stance toward war, we must first examine what it is to be a Christian. As followers of Christ, our identity and allegiance is to be rooted firmly in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Our prime mandate in this age of grace is to spread His gospel far and wide, making disciples of all people, and teaching them to observe everything that Christ has commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). We live and breathe with this end foremost in our minds and hearts, to the glory of God the Father. The life and teachings of Christ have come down to us through the God-breathed Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16). Although theological and philosophical systems can and do provide the Christian community direction on certain ethical issues, it is primarily from the inspired writings of the apostles and prophets that the Christian community is to derive its ultimate standards of God-blessed ethical living (2 Tim. 3:17). It is in these Scriptures that we find our Savior making clear and irrefutable statements regarding His position on violence and a normative Christian ethic of nonretaliation in the face of hostility.

In the history of the Christian church, beginning with Augustine in the fourth and fifth century A.D., well-intentioned theologians have attempted to delineate a theory of “just war.” Prior to the “Constantinian turn” in 313 A.D.,[3] the early church was uniformly pacifistic in its ethical commitments,[4] with many congregations forbidding employment in any office that may have required the use of violence against others, such as soldier, gladiator, or civil magistrate.[5] With the rise of Constantine, the church took power, and Christians began looking for ways to live out their faith with respect to their new environment. Theo-philosophical systems were constructed that rapidly supplanted the nonviolent New Testament teachings of Christ and His apostles. These accomodationist systems, built less on Scripture than on the philosophies of religious men, became (and continue to be) the predominant strain of thought regarding the Christian and state-sanctioned violence.[6] As a result of these philosophies combining with various and localized political considerations throughout the ages, the role of the state and the role of the church have become somewhat conflated. Unfortunately, much damage has been brought upon the cause of the gospel, both within the church and the world as a whole.

When we consider Romans 13:1-7,[7] it is important to hold in mind the audience and intent of Paul when he authored it. Too often, this passage is ripped right from its context and held up by Christian scholars as justification for warfare. As Hobbs and Hobbs point out, “The passage is not…a discourse on penology for the guidance of society at large.”[8] Rather, having just reminded the Roman believers of their duty to live nonviolent, vengeance-free, peaceable lives (Rom. 12:14-21), Paul transitions to exhortation regarding the Christian attitude toward governing authorities. When Paul asks, “Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?”, the “you” refers to the Roman believers he is addressing in his epistle, not the pagan public in general.[9]

Again, Paul’s purpose here is to exhort the Christian community at Rome to obey their rulers, not to lay an apologetic for the use of force by civil government. The fact that the entire passage is situated in the middle of a lengthy exhortation to Christian living testifies to this.[10] To miss this fact is to miss the entire point and intention of the inspired apostle in his exhortation, and open the door to the acceptance and approval of bloodshed and vengeance in the Christian community. The agency of vengeance is the state, not the church of Jesus Christ.

To the state has been given the power to wield the sword and “punish those who do evil” (1 Pet. 2:14; cf. Rom. 13:1-7). Nowhere is the church given the mandate to govern over others, wielding the sword and punishing evildoers. Rather, we are to “repay no one evil for evil” and “live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18, emphasis added). Christians are not to avenge wrongdoing: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19). The word translated “avenge” in Rom. 12:18 is a form of εκδικεω, which means “to vindicate, retaliate, punish: a(re-)venge.”[11] I believe it not without great significance that this word is found in its adjectival form just a few short verses later in Rom. 13:4. Here, it describes government as “an avenger [εκδικος] who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (emphasis added). The vengeance that is exercised by government is the very same vengeance that Christians are told not to exercise.[12] Rather than acting as an agent of wrath, the Christian is told, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Rom. 12:20).

In Rom. 13:1, 5 we are told to be in subjection to “the governing authorities” that have “been instituted by God.” Contrary to the rhetoric of some, I find no biblical evidence that submission to governing authorities means or remotely implies active, violent military service.[13] Rather, our submission is spelled out rather clearly and precisely in Romans 13 as paying taxes, paying revenue or tribute (probably export and import taxes),[14] and displaying a healthy, fearful respect and honor to governing authorities (vv. 6, 7). Nowhere in this summary of Christian orientation toward government do we find a mandate for Christians to pick up the sword on behalf of the ruling authorities. Neither do we find a mandate for Christian support of the state’s military ventures.[15] Actually, I find no support at all for the position that this text advocates warfare. This focus of this unit is Christian submission to the government’s role as an avenger who carries out God’s wrath upon those under their rule who “resist” their authority. This speaks of governments’ authority to mete out punishment to those within their borders, for the specific purpose of the maintenance of law and order by the forcible restraint of evil. Nothing in the text advocates for one government going out to war against another government. External warfare is not the focus of the government’s role here; internal punishment of a government’s subjects is what is being taught.

If the concept of the “Christian warrior” is something that runs contrary to the inspired New Testament doctrine, what services, then, are Christians commanded to do on behalf of their rulers? Paul urges “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:1). Rather than the marching in formation, bearing the sword in active military service to our government, Christians are urged to an active ministry of intercessory prayer. We are not to bear the sword for our government, but we are to bear the spiritual burden of diligent intercession on behalf of their rulers, for our kingdom and our weapons are not of this world.[16] Paul states that this is to be done so “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life” (v. 2, emphasis added). This “peaceful and quiet life” of prayerful intercession for governing authorities is “good” and “pleasing in the sight of God our Savior” (v. 3). Peter calls us to “fear God” and “honor the emperor” (1 Pet. 2:17). Believers are to honor their earthly rulers insofar as it does not conflict with the higher calling of God as citizens of His kingdom (Acts 5:29). This is the lifestyle and mindset of a gospel-centered saint who, along with our Lord, “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (v. 4). The higher calling of the Christian is to bear the gospel of the kingdom of God, not the sword of the kingdoms of this world. The primacy of the gospel must outweigh and override one’s loyalty to the ruling authorities in all areas of life.

Whether willingly or under compulsion, to pick up the sword and fight for one nation against another is to build again the dividing walls of sectarianism and nationalism that Christ abolished in the cross, having made in Himself one people by His grace (cf. Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14-22). To pick up the sword and fight for the ruling authorities is to fight in their name, under their authority as their servants against the people of other nations, some of whom (perhaps many of whom) may be Christian brothers or sisters. Scripture tells us that it is in the Father’s name by “whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:14-15) and it is “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” that we are commanded to indiscriminately love and serve the world by making “disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19) through the propagation of the gospel. As followers of Christ, this is our mandate and primary allegiance. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). The duty of an ambassador is to represent someone or something. “Everything he does and says must intentionally represent a leader who is not physically present.”[17] How is it that we “represent” our Lord, who taught an ethic of love and nonretaliation toward our enemies, in taking up the sword? How is it that we perform our role as ambassadors for Christ and fulfill “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18)[18] while pointing our weapons at others in the name of our country and in its interests? The simple and evident answer is that we cannot. Any attempt to do so necessarily confuses the church with the state, and the “power over” tactics of the kingdoms of the world with the “power under” mandate of the kingdom of God in Christ.[19]

We come now in this matter to the words of our Savior, who declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). Our Lord expounds on what peacemaking looks like in Matt. 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist[20] the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” In the following verses, our Lord commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (5:44).[21] When faced with one of His disciples who wielded the sword to defend His innocence and His life, Jesus issued the stern rebuke, “No more of this!” (Luke 22:51). He then commanded Peter, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52),[22] and miraculously reversed the effects of Peter’s violent outburst by healing the servant’s ear (Luke 22:51). “Through his actions, Jesus showed that the Kingdom of God relies not on the power of the sword, but the power of love that seeks to serve and heal enemies.”[23]

The mandate of the Christian is to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). How is it that a Christian engaged in fighting against other nations is making disciples of these people groups? By all appearances, it would seem as if he or she was not engaging in gospel-centered discipleship, but rather attempting to end lives through violent assault. For the unsaved who are killed in battle, there remains no opportunity for them to be reconciled to God, no way of remedying the breach, no way for them to secure eternal forgiveness for sins.[24] Further, our Lord describes a gospel-centered life in this way: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). It is nearly impossible to imagine that the intentional killing of your neighbor in warfare would not be a transgression of this command.

Over the centuries, evangelical believers have abandoned the New Testament teachings on nonretaliation in favor of a pseudo-Christian ethic that has mixed together worldly elements of secular and philosophical ethics. Those who belong to a peaceable kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36) have regrettably and unknowingly forged an alliance with the violent kingdoms of this world. Those commanded to put down their swords (Matt. 26:52) and take up their crosses (Mark 8:34) for the cause of the gospel are, unfortunately, all too comfortable in bearing the sword for the manifold causes of their worldly rulers. Those called upon by their Savior to love, pray for, and evangelize their enemies (Matt. 5:43-45; 28:18-20), are frequently found ignoring these commands and have busied themselves instead with taking the lives of their enemies. The kingdom of the cross has become conflated with the kingdom of the sword. God help us.

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[1] Zabelka, George. “Blessing the Bombs.” 17 August 2005. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/zabelka1.html (25 November 2009).

[2] C. John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War: A Contribution to the History of Christian Ethics, foreword by W.E. Orchard (London: Headly Bros., 1919), http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=648 (25 November 2009).

[3] Michael Horton, in The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), describes the turn in this manner: “With its growth…the [early] church began to make itself the big story. Success had its own set of problems. As the church received toleration and then was even made the official religion of the empire under Constantine, many of its leaders became worldly rulers, mirroring the mighty lords of the secular kingdom. Christ’s conquest over sin, death, hell, Satan, and the principalities and powers of this age was not the news itself as much as it was the basis for the church’s conquest over the kingdoms of this age through its alliance with secular political power. The church became a culture – a civilization – rather than ‘a kingdom of priests’ announcing a new regime with a heavenly King…” (126). The rise of this compromised, earthly, Christo-secular kingdom sounded the death knell for further adherence to Jesus’ ethic of submissive nonretaliation.

[4] Cadoux, in The Early Christian Attitude to War, cautions, “The example of our Christian forefathers indeed can never be of itself a sufficient basis for the settlement of our own conduct today…. At the same time the solution to our own ethical problems will involve a study of the mind of Christendom on the same or similar questions during bygone generations: and, for this purpose, perhaps no period of Christian history is so important as that of the first three centuries” (2).

[5] Ivor J. Davidson, The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine, A.D. 30-312, ed. by John D. Woodbridge, David F. Wright, and Tim Dowley, Vol. 1 in The Baker History of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 273. See also Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Complete in One Volume: The Early Church to the Present Day (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 2005), 53 and Kenneth Scott Latourette, The First Five Centuries, Vol. 1 in A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 5^th ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1937), 268-69. If the “just war” thinking that developed centuries and millennia after Christ was consistent with the ethic He and His disciples taught and modeled, I find it very hard to believe that the first Christian generations missed this mark in such spectacular fashion. The uniform pacifism of the first generations of the disciples of Jesus and His apostles speaks convincingly against later, opposing philosophical developments in the church.

[6] In this paper and elsewhere, I use the terms “state,” “government,” “rulers,” and “authorities” synonymously.

[7] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references will be from the ESV.

[8] Eric E. Hobbs and Walter C. Hobbs, “Contemporary Capital Punishment: Biblical Difficulties With the Biblically Permissible,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 468.

[9] However, the principle of obedience to governmental authority surely applies to the wider audience of the entire society under such rule.

[10] Romans 12:1 to 15:13 is a textual unit that describes what the righteousness of God should look like as it is practiced and lived out in the immediate faith community and in the wider world in general.

[11] Key Dictionary of the Greek New Testament, based on Greek Strong’s Dictionary, ed. by Rick Bennett, Version 1.2, Accordance Bible Software 8.4, Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2009.

[12] Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 169.

[13] I imagine that it is possible that one can serve in the military as a nurse or a medic or a chaplain, rather than by fighting on the front lines or in an active support role. Although, along with Laurence Vance in Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, 2^nd ed. (Pensacola, FL: Vance Publications, 2008), I must admit my reservations about a minister who is “paid by, and answerable to, the state…. Taxpayer supported chaplains have to serve two masters: God and the state. Compromise is inevitable. He that pays the piper calls the tune” (286). Vance goes on to say that the Southern Baptists recognized this fact in 1918 and passed a resolution calling for the abolishment of government-paid ministers. A further reservation about the compromised role of the military chaplain can be found in “The Covenant and Code of Ethics for Chaplains of the Armed Forces” of the United States: “I understand, as a chaplain in the Armed Forces, that I must function in a pluralistic environment with chaplains of other religious bodies…. I will not proselytize from other religious bodies….” The entire text of this chaplaincy code can be found in Joe E. Trull and James E. Carter, Ministerial Ethics: Moral Formation for Church Leaders, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 256-67. How is it that a Christian minister who is commanded by Christ to make disciples of all peoples can, before God, take a vow not to evangelize dying souls enslaved by the demonic deceptions of the false religions of this world? Lastly, I wonder about the moral legitimacy of one who would preach Jesus’ ethic of nonretaliation and loving one’s enemies in a context where people are commanded to retaliate against their enemies by shooting or dismembering them with ordnance of various types (cf. Matt. 5:9, 38-39, 44; 26:52; Luke 22:51).

[14] Charles C. Ryrie, “The Christian and Civil Disobedience,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 435.

[15] Contra George W. Knight III: “So we see that God [in Rom. 13:1-7] gives to the state the power of the sword, the right to wage war against evil, and calls on Christians to honor and support this authority and activity. This much is clear” (emphasis added). See Knight’s “Can a Christian Go to War?” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 498.

[16] John 18:36: Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Ronald J. Sider and Richard K. Taylor, in “Jesus and Violence: Some Critical Objections” note that “Jesus informed Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world in one specific way – namely, that his followers do not use violence,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 506. See also 2 Cor.10:3-5.

[17] Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 104. Tripp goes on to state, “The work of an ambassador is incarnational. His actions, character, and words embody the king who is not present” (104). The ambassador’s mission is to build “relationships of love, grace, and trust with others” (122). If this is true, and relational, incarnational ministry to the surrounding world is the duty and calling of the Christian (and I suspect it is), then Christians have great impetus to lay down their carnal weapons of warfare. Tripp summarizes the work of an ambassador under three categories: “As an ambassador, I will represent: (1) the message of the King…(2) the methods of the King…[and] (3) the character of the King” (107, emphasis in original). The message of our King is one of peace and forgiveness. The methods of our King was one of nonretaliation toward those who did Him harm. The character of our King is gracious and merciful. I would posit that the “Christian soldier” cannot faithfully and honestly represent King Jesus in any of these three categories of ambassadorship.

[18] The passage where this text is found (2 Cor. 5:11-6:2) is so critical to an understanding of the Christian life, that R. P. C. Hanson (in 2 Corinthians [London: SCM, 1954], 51) refers to it as “one of the charters of the Christian ministry in the New Testament” (quoted in David L. Turner, “Paul and the Ministry of Reconciliation in 2 Cor. 5:11-6:2,” in Criswell Theological Review 4/1 [1989]: 77). Turner states that the results of reconciliation between men are “harmonious relationship[s] of reciprocal personal love” (92). These relationships are characterized by a “peace [that] permeates the whole of one’s life” (93, emphasis added). It remains to be proven by warfare advocates how these Christian relationships of reconciliation can be established through destructive and violent military actions.

[19] For an explication of this extremely helpful “power over” versus “power under” model of the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God, see Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation.

[20] Jesus does not here forbid all forms of resistance, but merely the use of physical force in retaliation. Jesus Himself practiced governmental resistance, but in a nonviolent manner (Matt. 21:12-13; 23:13-33; John 18:19-24). The word translated “resist” in Matt. 5:39 is ανθιστημι, which “doesn’t necessarily suggest passivity. Rather, it connotes responding to a violent action with a similar violent action” (Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009], 96).

[21] Sider and Taylor, in “Jesus and Violence,” note: “To a people so oppressed by foreign conquerors that over the previous two centuries they had repeatedly resorted to violent rebellion, Jesus gave the unprecedented command: ‘Love your enemies’” (507).

[22] It is interesting that in the Lukan account, just prior to the incident in the Garden with Peter, Jesus says to His disciples, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one” (22:36). When the disciples say, “Look, Lord, here are two swords,” Jesus replies, “It is enough.” The reference to knapsacks and moneybags along with the sword indicates that our Lord was readying and preparing His followers for His departure (cf. 22:37). Part of this preparation included a sword for self-protection. Note that Jesus didn’t tell Peter to completely discard his sword, but to put it back “into its place [τοπος].” It seems that our Lord recognized the sword as an item that was to be used only in cases of unavoidable self-defense. Even then, He never authorizes it to be used against others. It is possible to use a sword (and other weapons) as a defensive display to discourage attackers or robbers without utilizing it to actively shed blood. (In our time, the equivalent would be to fire a “warning shot” into the air.) It is also possible to use it solely in a protective and defensive way to ward off blows from another.

[23] Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion, 94.

[24] The language here is adapted from John Murray, “The Sanctity of Life,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 460.

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