HOW ABOUT THE WAR?

It is my impression that we Americans are more uptight about the war in the Persian Gulf than we were with any other international crisis in our lifetime. In major cities across the nation there is an emergency hotline that people can call who find themselves overly distraught. My sister in Dallas is probably typical. When she went to her doctor for a checkup, he asked her what she was so nervous about. Unaware of being all that nervous, she replied, “If I’m nervous, it’s that war.” He advised her to turn off her TV.

That may be why this war provokes such uneasiness. More than ever before, the horror and reality of war is brought into our homes by TV, and this time around it is instant. My sister told me how she rode a bomb into Bagdad and went right down the elevator shaft of an Iraqi military facility! A TV camera was in the nose of the missile!

But there is another reason for our panicky feelings. All this came on us just as the Cold War had ended and at a time when it looked as if there might be real peace on earth and goodwill toward men. The Soviet Union was now our ally, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down! And, who could believe it?, Germany was reunited. Even more incredible, an enslaved Eastern Europe became free.

It was euphoria. We were caught up to Cloud 9. The world is going to make it after all, we were thinking. Then, bang! Saddam Hussein! There’s a proverb that describes us, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”

It will help to talk with each other about the war and share our feelings. I have asked numerous people what they think and how they feel, and I find everyone alarmed and fearful. We need to work out an acceptable way of looking at all this, and sharing ideas should help. Confusion only accentuates our fears. We need to find a simple way of looking at a complex situation, somewhat the way Jesus responded to a perplexing question, Shall we render tribute to Caesar or not? He did not deliver an extended theological address, but said simply, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

I will join in the conversation about the war by telling a story that was passed along through the centuries by Jewish rabbis to illustrate their concept of community. Three men were in a boat together. One of the men began to bore a hole in the bottom of the boat beneath his seat. When the others protested, he explained that he was only boring a hole beneath his seat. And so the rabbis made their point about community. “We are all in the boat together,” they said.

That is our rationale for being in the Gulf war. It can remain debatable as to whether we should have waited longer for sanctions to work. What is clear is that we had to do something, and the reason is simple. We are all in the same boat with Saddam Hussein, and what he does beneath his own seat concerns us all. If he is bent on destroying his world then he is bent on destroying our world. We had to do something, and when you are dealing with a man who understands only one language, which is force, then that means war, sooner or later.

I see no point in carrying “Peace” placards and signs that read “No Blood for Oil,” or staging sit-downs in front of the Capitol, though I do not question their moral and legal right to do so. It is a matter of what kind of a neighbor we are going to be. If a rapist is at large in your neighborhood it is no time to carry peace signs. Nor are you a responsible neighbor if you seclude yourself in your home, lower the blinds, and protest “I believe in peace!” How about the rapist in your block? We are not only to be peace lovers but peacemakers, and to make peace and to preserve peace we may have to take up the sword.

Is it blood for oil? Not for oil per se but for the power of oil, in part at least. Every war is fought partly for material values, for what we call “our way of life.” But far more than oil is involved. We are fighting for civilized values, for human decency, for justice for the innocent and the helpless. We are fighting because we cannot live in the kind of world ordered by Saddam Hussein. If he can’t sit in the boat without boring a hole under his seat, then he has to leave the boat. If he will not leave peacefully, then we have to use other means to see that he leaves.

One discerning critic of the war asked a pertinent question, “Are we the 911 number for all the world?” The answer to that has to be a qualified yes, for we are the leading nation of the free world. We are the big guy in the neighborhood who is able to help the little guys. We may have to be selective in the responses we make to the 911 calls, but it is clear that we have to be a responsible neighbor in the community of nations. With the rape of Kuwait by one who has dreams of empire, how could we but respond?

Then how should we as believers pray? As we have always prayed, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven, for peace on earth and goodwill toward humankind, for the time when nations will beat their swords into plowshares and study war no more. And that He will make us instruments of His peace.

And we will trust God through it all, realizing that He is neither surprised by nor unprepared for what has happened, and that He is in control. We are like the boy on what appeared to be a runaway train to the other passengers, all of whom were frightened. Noting his calm, they asked why he was not afraid. “My father is the engineer,” he told them. It may not have been clear to the boy where his father was taking them, but he was confident they would arrive at their destination.

We are to believe like the psalmist believed when he sung in Ps. 66:7:

He rules by his power forever;

His eyes observe the nations;

Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves.—the Editor