Bin Laden: Sometimes Love is Tough.

The news from Pakistan about the killing of Osama bin Laden has elicited cheers from around our country. That's understandable. Bin Laden and others like him have been driven by a blind conviction that the world would be better off with one particular kind of fundamentalist Islam in control of all things big and small. Their willingness to take the lives of innocent people in the pursuit of their political and religious goals was unrestrained.

A friend sent me the following quote from Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

As a follower of Jesus I have struggled for a long time with the question about the appropriateness of war/violence as a means of solving problems. Jesus, after all, says (Matthew 5), "Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously."

Early Christians caused a scandal when they refused to serve in the army of the Roman Empire. Many Jesus followers were, from the beginning, pacifists. A great many Christians -including the sizable Amish and Mennonite populations in northern Indiana- continue to renounce violence in all situations.

I am not a pacifist. I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Period. There is no "but" coming. I believe the world would be a much better place if we "bombed" nations like Iraq with things like food, blankets, and medical supplies. I believe living generously, practicing compassion with those who distrust us and wish us ill, will get us further down the road to a better world than resorting to violence. I am deeply concerned by our continuing high level of spending on weaponary. If we are not careful we are going to end up as a hollow empire with unlivable cities, failing schools, inadequate healthcare, and a state-of-the-art military machine. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned America against the temptation to build our national agenda around the "military industrial complex."

And yet. And yet...we live in a world that is imperfect. We live in a world where there are very dangerous people who want to hurt the innocent. Every now and then there is a kind of evil loose in the world that must be confronted. Not to oppose this kind of implacable evil is to become a partner to the destruction caused by that evil.

I suppose the issue that "tipped" me in support of the "just war" side that of the Christian community (which claims there are times when military force may be our last, best option) was the Holocaust. As a teenager I came face to face with the reality of the deliberate efforts of National Socialism in the Germany of the 1930-40's to exterminate the Jews. Historians say that more than six million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others were killed by the Nazis and their helpers in such nations as France, Russia and Poland. I did my best to imagine how a non-violent response, on the part of Christians in Europe and around the world, might have stopped Hitler and his plan. I finally came to the conclusion that this evil would have been prevented if France, Poland, Belgium, and other nations had militarily confronted Nazi Germany as it began its expansion.

Sometimes what you get when you seek to satisfy the demands of a little bully is a bigger bully. I learned that on the playground.

Reinhold Niebuhr, a pastor during the middle years of the last century, broke with other Christian leaders who were insisting that we stay out of the conflict against the Axis Powers. Niebuhr said that love sometimes means you do all you can to maximize justice in the world.

One Christian writer says there are two sides to love: one is soft (grace, acceptance) and the other is hard (accountability, discipline).

We live in a broken, imperfect world where there is too much injustice and where there are some very, very dangerous people who intend to harm the innocent. I am thankful that Osama bin Laden will not be able to create any more destruction in the world. His removal was, I believe, necessary. I do not feel joy at his death but a weary kind of relief.

Before I end these thoughts I need to say how deeply grateful I am for men and women who do heroic things to confront evil. The team that went deep into Pakistan and took a great risk and was extraordinarily brave, bright, and gifted. What they did was amazing.

I still yearn for the day when, as the song says, we aren't going to study war "no more." I yearn for the day when, as the prophet says, we will beat our swords into plowshares.

Does It Work?

It's pretty difficult to justify violence as a solution to the problems of humanity when you look at what Jesus said and did. Early followers of Jesus were pacifists. Early Christians refused to serve in the Roman military, I've read.

But I'm not a pacifist. During the days leading up to World War II the Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, advocated a forceful response to Nazism. He talked about the fact that love sometimes is working for justice. Taking on the people bent on destroying others. So I'm not a pacifist.

And still.

Israeli ground troops have moved into the Gaza Strip. Periodic rocket attacks by Hamas have been going on for months. I understand the Israeli response. What is a nation to do when it is under attack?

Those Palestinians, those fundamentalist Muslims, who refuse the right of Israel to exist are passionate but short-sighted. Israel has a right to exist. And the Palestinians have a right to develop a state that is ready to be a partner with the other nations in the Middle East -including Israel.

Here is the question that troubles me: will this military action in Gaza work? The option of killing those who wish us harm must, it seems to me, be a last option. Military attack against fundamentalists, or those who are convinced they are the victims of injustice, tends to inflame the problem. Our force tends to create more enemies and more violence.

Instead of non-violent answers being the product of deluded idealists perhaps it should be considered because they can work. What would happen if Israel poured medical resources into Gaza? What would happen if Israel made sure every Palestinian child had a good education and proper nutrition?

So jets are flying and tanks are rolling. I am praying.

And I keep asking myself the question, "Will this work?"