When Christians kill
Garvey, John
JOHN GARVEY OF SEVERAL MINDS WHEN CHRISTIANS KILL Don't make a virtue of necessity In opposed the war in Vietnam and was active in the antiwar movement. I would do it again. The war we are...
...I found that I often liked them more than some of the antiwar people I knew...
...I cannot accept the idea that pacifism is an appropriate response here, though Christian pacifism must be taken seriously and not waved away as if it were a merely sectarian quirk...
...It seemed strange to me, though-the thought of a former antiwar activist celebrating the liturgy with tomorrow's military elite went against the grain...
...I can see a willingness to choose death for myself, but I cannot see passively accepting the deaths of people whose crime was showing up for work on September 11...
...Like many who opposed our involvement in Vietnam, I believe a military response was necessary after September 11...
...We might learn from that...
...I liked the chaplains I met, and the cadets...
...it's for the church...
...The cadets were a diverse lot, from all economic backgrounds, polite and respectful to a fault, and serious about their studies...
...This was a witness to the gravity of what it means to kill even a killer- one for whom Christ also died...
...We must go into this with a sense of mourning, an understanding that this is tragedy, and there can be no real triumph, only an attempt to keep even greater evil at bay...
...The early church made people wait for years (sometimes even until their deathbeds) for re-admission to the Eucharist if they shed blood, even in selfdefense...
...Years later my next door neighbor was a retired army colonel who had worked alone with some mountain people in Vietnam, seldom seeing other Westerners, and he loved it...
...It was a bit of a stretch, though, when I wound up regularly celebrating the Orthodox liturgy at West Point...
...None of this is surprising-it is possible to be friends with people who are hawks, pro-choice, or agnostic...
...We met in a basement chapel, small and catacomb-like...
...I have always found it impossible to accept as a Christian argument one which does not need at any point to mention Jesus Christ...
...On the other hand, any deaths that result from our action-not only the civilians who die but even the terrorists-defile us...
...They reminded me of my neighbor...
...My objection to a pacifist response here is that it will not stop the violence...
...When I mentioned this to my wife Regina she said, "It should teach you that ordination isn't for you...
...at most we had eight or nine on any given Sunday...
...Given the war our country is currently fighting, I find myself torn...
...Like many college students away from home for the first time, Orthodox students used college as a holiday from churchgoing...
...In Neil Young's song "Let's Roll," written after September 11, there are words which sum it up well: "I hope that we're forgiven / for what we've got to do...
...At the same time, we must as Christians communicate the idea that even a war which seems necessary is tragic, and we involve ourselves in a mystery of evil...
...but the evil may be necessary...
...Participation in a necessary war means that we are involved in evil...
...Just as Oedipus was defiled by sleeping with a woman he did not know was his mother, and by killing a man he did not know was his father, we participate in an evil, however necessary it may be, when we kill people for whom Christ died.hom Christ died...
...We got to be friends...
...Our response must be repentant, and the idea of a victory parade is truly obscene...
...But Christian pacifism is not about winning...
...and besides, what about my plans...
...What impresses me about many of the military people I know is that they often have a keener appreciation of the tragedy of war than civilians do, especially civilian political leaders, and this is probably to be expected...
...our use of force seems right, in that it may lead to less violence over the long haul...
...The decision to ordain me to the priesthood was made because they needed a priest for West Point...
...Thinking about these things, I remembered the days when I worked as a draft counselor, and some of the military people I got to know during that period...
...His favorite reading during that period was The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
...it says that you might in fact wind up crucified, and that is better than killing, no matter what the cause...
...There were approximately forty who described themselves as Orthodox...
...Saint Vladimir's Seminary supplied the priest for West Point, a reasonable drive from the campus, and I was assigned to go there...
...Still, I can't buy into the just-war theory as it is usually presented...
...I had thought of remaining a permanent deacon, and looking for work in publishing...
...The war we are engaged in now is thoroughly different...
...The drive to West Point was a beautiful one, as are the grounds once you get there...
Vol. 129 • January 2002 • No. 2
