Issues in Military Ethics: To Support and Defend the Constitution

Chapter 9: Is Just War Spirituality Possible?

9 Is Just War Spirituality Possible? In this chapter, I wish to explore a topic that I find troubling and difficult and that I suffer a number of disadvantages in even attempting to address. But it is a fundamental question that lies at the heart of the cogency of the entire enterprise of Christian just war thinking. The question is this: is it possible, in the midst of combat, to maintain the kinds of attitudes and the psychological states that Christian just war writers hold out as the moral ideal for the Christian soldier? Following that discussion, I will take up an issue that is perhaps even more troubling: the rise among some of the ranks of the U.S. military of a new “holy war” mentality that frames much of the current U.S. military engagement in the world in terms of “spiritual warfare.” The Classical Normative Christian View of Soldiering From the very beginning of an explicit embrace of the moral legitimacy of military service by Christians, there has been a strong normative view of the special moral attitudes appropriate to Christian soldiering. Even though that tradition is ancient and relatively consistent, there are reasons to be skeptical about it from the outset. The most obvious reason for skepticism is that neither I nor most of the Christian writers who advocate this unique spirituality for the soldier have ever experienced the emotions and terror of an actual combat environment. So my exploration of this topic may be understood as attempting to sketch out a framing of a fundamental question for which any number of others might usefully contribute. The reasons given for a unique Christian spirituality of soldiering are theological and normative. But the possibility of actually sustaining those attitudes in the midst of the reality of war is an issue that invites comment from the social science perspective. Perhaps even more important, it requires observations from reflective and experienced combat veterans who often (and understandably ) question whether those of us who haven’t “been there and done that” can possibly say anything useful about their moral world.1 107 108 Issues in Military Ethics So, with those fears and qualifications firmly before us, let us commence . From the very beginning of Christian just war thinking, the idea that what fundamentally distinguishes the Christian soldier from others, and that what makes his conduct in combat morally permissible, is a unique mental set of attitudes and beliefs. We find this, for example, in one of the most famous of all early Christian just war documents, Augustine’s famous Letter 189 to Count Boniface, the military commander of the Roman army in his area. Since the letter is rich in many ideas, I cite it at some length: Do not think that it is impossible for any one to please God while engaged in active military service. Among such persons was the holy David, to whom God gave so great a testimony . . . Among them were also the soldiers who, when they had come to be baptized by John,—the sacred forerunner of the Lord, and the friend of the Bridegroom, of whom the Lord says: Among them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist, Matthew 11:11—and had inquired of him what they should do, received the answer, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. Luke 3:14 Certainly he did not prohibit them to serve as soldiers when he commanded them to be content with their pay for the service. They occupy indeed a higher place before God who, abandoning all these secular employments, serve Him with the strictest chastity; but every one, as the apostle says, has his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. 1 Corinthians 7:7 Some, then, in praying for you, fight against your invisible enemies; you, in fighting for them, contend against the barbarians, their visible enemies. Would that one faith existed in all, for then there would be less weary struggling, and the devil with his angels would be more easily conquered; but since it is necessary in this life that the citizens of the kingdom of heaven should be subjected to temptations among erring and impious men, that they may be exercised, and tried as gold in the furnace, Wisdom 3:6 we ought not before the appointed time to desire to live with those alone who are holy...