Holy War

I was preparing this week's bible portion for reading at the CW reenactment this weekend.  I was speaking with the chaplain at the last event and he invited me to do a reading at the Sunday church service.  I told him I'd like to do the reading in the original Hebrew and he agreed.  I was reading through the portion when I came across this section, in which God commands the Israelites to wage war against another nation.  This war has explicit religious overtones, and the army is commanded not by Joshua, the secular leader who usually leads the army (and will lead the entire nation after Moses dies), but by Pinhas, a religious leader.

The ethics of warfare is a debate that has raged since well before the Civil War.  The current debate--involving CIA hitmen--hinges on what is ethical during wartime (a question with which this bible portion concerns itself as well), but the bigger question is whether war is ever ethically justified.  The bible's answer is yes.

Even though our current "war against terror" is the most religiously motivated war in several centuries, Americans have been eager to avoid discussing this war in religious terms.  It doesn't matter what God the terrorists worship, we say, we're fighting them because they attacked us.  Moreover, the US is not at war with Islam, etc. etc.  This belies the basic fact that they attacked us because our faith is not the same as theirs.

During the Civil War, as now, religiously minded people have had deep reservations about whether we should fight at all.  The bible tells us to turn the other cheek, and that killing is a sin.  Nevertheless, God explicitly states in the bible that war can be justified.  Is war always justified?  Of course not.  But is it sometimes justified?  Absolutely.

However, the bible also goes out of its way to mention that killing is a dirty business, even when it's for a holy purpose.  When the holy Israelite warriors returned from their holy war, they had to spend a week spiritually cleansing themselves before they were allowed back into camp.

The result is a quiet recognition of the odd dichotomy of war.  Sometimes it is justified, even necessary.  But it is still a dirty and awful thing.  It is important to recognize and accept both aspects.

Interestingly, this very same dialog occurred during the Civil War.  The Catholic community in the Northern states was very ambivalent towards the war for the reasons mentiond above.  When the New York State Militia was tapped to help form the Irish Brigade, it went a long way toward winning over the Catholic community.  An entire brigade made up almost entirely of Catholics was a strong symbol to a nation that called upon God to defend it.  That is the unit I portray, the New York 69th.

On the other hand, it was the Union general William Tecumseh Sherman who famously said, "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell."  He said this to a class of military cadets.

As I prepare for a weekend of reenacting the American Civil War, and as the War on Terror creeps back into the daily news, it is comforting to see the bible rise up like a calm father, put its hand on my shoulder, and whisper its words of wisdom in my ear.

J<

PS: I know I've taken some big issues and boiled them down into trite little nuggets.  I know I could write a whole chapter on each paragraph.  But this isn't a book, it's a blog post.  If you want to discuss this further, you're welcome to leave a comment.  You know I like debate.