Again, had they listened to the Prince of Peace, they would have know better: By 1947, I was aghast at the bloodletting, the cruelty, the injustice, and the general horror of those times.  I was spared the awful experience of combat but persons close to me were not.  It all produced a personal crisis when the atomic bomb burst upon the world.  I was 21 years of age and, moved by that carnage and the expectation that peace would never be secure, resolved not to live a life subject to war.

But what could I do?  All men seemed prone to war against other men.  Could I be an exception? 

I did not know the answer to these questions, but from deep within there kept coming to mind these words of Jesus that I had already read many times in my quest to understand the significance of war.

Love my enemies?  That this might be possible, I did not know.  The Lord's words did offer hope and to him I turned -- to the one who uttered these words . . . . hoping . . . believing he would teach me the causes of war and how to surmount them.

The next war was not long delayed and in 1951, during the Korean War, I renounced my affiliation with military service.  I did not understand why but I had hope that my Lord would teach me.  He has done so, though I proved to be a slow learner.  The cause of war is the most elemental single thing that I learned.  Knowing the cause does not encourage me to hope for world peace, but it does give me full assurance of the personal experience of the Peace of Jesus -- the peace he has promised only to his disciples.


What is the Cause of War?

Among scholars -- historians, sociologists, theologians and others who study war in efforts to explain it -- those who speak of the "cause of war" in the singular are a very small minority.  Some assert, as does this college professor, that it is not possible to isolate a single cause. 

It is interesting to Google this question by searching this string: the causes of war are.  This search currently yields 705 sites, the great majority of which speak of the causes in the plural, and attempt to define them.   This site is  thorough in analyzing war's causes, beginning by isolating the quest to the consideration of three different levels of conflict -- Individual, Societal, and International System. 

I was focussed on Jesus, however, so I found myself not only researching the gospels, but reading the works of the more famous Christian pacifists.  These included Leo Tolstoy, Rufus Jones (the prominent Twentieth Century Quaker), George Fox (the founder of the Quaker denomination),  Meno Simons, Jacob Hutter (and other Anabaptists) and more recent protagonists.  The recent ones included Clarence Jordan who, like me, had been at Southern Baptist Seminary.  I also read some of Christoph Blumhardt and Eberhardt Arnold (Society of Brethren), Vernard Eller (Church of the Brethren) and many others.  The Mennonite, John Howard Yoder, with his The Politics of Jesus caught my attention, but did not keep it.  Not one of them could answer the question, "What is the cause of war?" 

Christian Pacifists are not the only Christians who are concerned about this question, and I have also listened to the representatives of the major denominations.  In 1968 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published this statement:
Multiple causes again, and these categorized as only representative of the deeper causes.  This leaves the way open for less deep causes, even if we sum all of these under the single catch-all category, 'sin.' 

The many voices of Christendom only left me disappointed and confused.  I began to take stock of the fact that it was Jesus who had set me on this quest, and so I concentrated anew on the gospels.  Somewhere in there I hoped to learn the single and ultimate cause of war, and many other things. 

I repeatedly pondered the Sermon on the Mount with its radical commandments, including this that I have already put before us:
"Lord, how is this possible?"

This question kept recuring.  I vowed to do violence to no man, but I also realized that this is a thing easy to say and to think in the comfort of my American home, protected from men of violence by armed forces internationally and armed law enforcers locally. 

It has not happened, but I felt that I might react violently in the event of a life threatening attack.  I had no grounds for confidence that my resolve would endure when tested because I did not understand my position.  I only knew that I hated war and resolved never to go to war. 

So what?  Don't almost all persons, Christian or not, hate war? They are realists who know that tyrants must be fought and defeated by force of arms and they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause so that others, including me, can have the freedom to publish pacifist propaganda and live in peace while doing so.

And the Lord would cut me no slack!  Listen:

Do not oppose wickedness?  Do not resist the evil one, as many translators have it?  Here we have a word that goes beyond non violence to embrace non resistance!

On the face of it, this is either insanity or stupidity to most people.  I had also to deal with the simple fact that no nation of Christians has long followed this course.  History does not suggest longevity to any nation that refuses to resist aggression.  Failure to resist on a national scale can lead only to national disaster.  It would be the same on the personal level were it not  for the state's armed resistance to enemies both personal and national.

Can the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount be meant to apply only to individuals and not to nations? 

Laboring over such questions during the Cold War period and during the Vietnam war, I would, on occasion, momentarily doubt my faith in Jesus as the Prince of Peace.  But every time doubt raised its ugly head, I had a sure defense.  I thought of war and of the millions of dead and maimed from the wars of my short lifetime, and the doubts quickly faded.  What I was seeking was -- must be -- very significant if it could justify my non violent stance so as to deliver not only me but others who might otherwise perish by violence, either national or personal.

Additionally, Jesus kept promising peace to me through these words: The seeking continued, as did my devotion to a life of non violence.  There was a continuing assurance that the answer was to be found and I could maintain my confidence in the righteousness of the cause of peace.  Of course I examined other voices from the peace movement that grew strong in the Vietnam War.   The answer was in none of them. 

The Love of Life

I often thought of what would be the worst result from failure to resist or to fight back in the event of an attack on my person.  The same answer came  every time:  In the worst case, I would be killed and so lose my life.  Any resistance could therefore be fueled by the fear of losing my life or, to state it another way, the fear of death.  All so obvious!  Or to state it differently yet, by the love of life. Was I different from others?  I didn't think so.  I concluded that this would be the ultimate reason for the resistance of any person in the face of a threat to life.

Life is precious and the threat of losing it will trigger a response intended to counter the threat, whatever it takes, up to and including killing the threatener.  This is the case with humans, and it is also the case with many beasts. This response is driven by the evolutionary processes that have produced us.  When we fight back, we are doing what our predecessors have done until now, and it is only for that reason that they survived and we are here.  We are here, and there is built within each of us the instinct for self preservation. 

There are other results of this evolution driven love of life beyond violent resistance at the individual level.  Prominent among these is reverence for life in general and appreciation of its value.  Here is another excerpt from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops:

This bonding of reverence for life with worship of God is a natural consequence of ideas going back to the Sixth Commandment, "You shall not kill."  It is the perfect companion of the love of life, and is one of the strongest convictions of all branches of the Christian religion -- indeed, of all religions.

Please give special attention to the last sentence of the above statements:

Here, reverence for life translates into love of life and concludes that its absence constitutes an absolute breach of any relation with God.  One might even say that failure to love life is the unpardonable sin.  This Catholic statement is typical of the position of most, if not all, Christian denominations.

The love of life is then the absolute cause of violence at the personal level.   When the individual senses that he is too weak to prevail, he will seek allies and so does his enemy.  The ultimate consequence of this is that at the highest group level, that of the nation, this same love fuels both the defensive war and the preemptive one. 

It does not stop with defense and preemption.  A proper consideration of the immediate causes of war will show that almost every case ultimately resolves the cause into the love of life.  If the citizens of one nation find that their prosperity and happiness is being limited by oppressive policies of another, such as trade restrictions and import tariffs, they may conclude that war is their only means to a more prosperous life.  Or, if the members of a significant group within a nation conclude that their lives are constrained by a dominant group, the love of life may drive them to civil war.  The strength of Communism and the many wars it spawned during the Twentieth Century resided in its promise of a better life for the masses.  National hubris, the pride of life and lust for treasure have fueled many wars of aggression and conquest.  I am thinking of the European conquest of native Americans in quest of riches to take home and enjoy. 

Social conditions, injustice, pride, national hubris -- there are numerous causes  of war.  Sociologists explain them, historians define them and theologians deplore them.  However, it will be found that there is one root cause that fuels every one, which is the love of life.  It is the very thing the theologians, the bishops, the popes and the preachers everywhere extol as the essence of the worship of God!  The cause of war, the ultimate cause that underlies all causes, is the love of life.  Ironically this love of life blinds most men to the ultimate cause of war, including the churchmen!  They cannot help it -- they love their lives and praise the very cause of the many evils they deplore, including war. 


The Exception

This conclusion did not come to me full grown, but gradually as I attended to the task of being a disciple in the school of Jesus of Nazareth.  He is the exception, among all men, who discloses this single and ultimate cause of war and of almost every form of violence.  My puzzlement about how he could command non resistance and love for an enemy, and expect to be obeyed, began to fade when I finally came to the serious consideration of what I have termed his Great Principle.  He stated this principle many times, which the evangelists repeatedly recorded.  It's most pertinent expression, for our present purpose, is this:


The Lord made this statement in a context where he explains exactly why he is going to submit to death by crucifixion.  We are now going to take a careful look at this context and insert appropriate comments.  The comments are necessary only to direct your attention to the meaning of an utterance that you may have read many times without understanding.  It begins:
He has already dispatched Judas to consummate the act of betrayal, so that we can say with confidence that when he speaks of the hour to be glorified, he intends us to understand that this glorification is to occur by means of his death by crucifixion.  This would follow soon.  The hour has come for him to die.  He continues: This explains why he is about to die -- this is necessary in order that he bear much fruit.  If he had not suffered this particular death and experienced this particular glorification, he would have borne no fruit, and the world would never have heard of him.  Please note the order here: first, fall into the earth, then die!  He is not speaking of being entombed, for that came after his death.  As he often does, he is speaking from the perspective of heaven.  It was been necessary for him to "fall into the earth" from heaven and die thereafter.  We read next of the underlying principle:

We are back to the Great Principle; at this point we may be thinking that he applies it only to himself, for it is his death that he is explaining.  It does apply to him -- but examine the statement and you will see that it has universal application.  He has been explaining his death by crucifixion in terms that apply not only to him but to everyone.  This is clear from the next verse:

If there were any doubt about the universal application, this should erase it, because he directs our attention here both to himself and to anyone who may wish to serve him.  He makes no exception, either for himself or for us, therefore we see why the Great Principle is a universal principle.  The only distinction with respect to him is that he is the leader and all others are followers.  Nor is there justification for any other distinction between the manner and purpose of his death and that of the follower because he applies exactly the same principle to all.  He is about to take up a cross on which he will die.  This makes of the cross a symbol of both the universal principle and the unique death of Jesus. 

The death of Jesus was that of an exemplary leader, not that of a vicarious substitute. We will not be saved by trusting in his cross.  We will only be saved by taking up our crosses and following our leader as he constantly teaches.  That is precisely the wording of the synoptic version of this teaching that is paired with another version of the same Great Principle:

Now back to our subject, the cause of war.  This explains the single ultimate cause of war by explaining how to be free from war.  If you need further evidence for this connection, here is one place to find it:

To make this application personal, just consider that you are being approached by an enemy with intent to kill -- an individual or an army, it is no matter.  Don't fear him.  Don't attack him.  Allow him to do whatever he will, because the worst he can do to you is in Truth the best anyone can do for you.  Bear your cross.  Follow Jesus as he bore his cross.  Fear God, not the enemy, and you will not be thrown into Gehenna.  You, like Jesus before you, will be hating your life in this world so that you can save it for eternal life with the Father.  But if you choose to resist a deadly foe, the implication is that you may be thrown into Gehenna (hell).

Why might this result?

Having looked at the application of the Great Principle, let us briefly examine the application of the Great Commandment, that reads as follows:

If you are like most people, especially Christians, you may never have examined this commandment so as to realize its implication.  Love, by definition, is strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.  It is the affection that binds two persons together, and in the case of the Great Commandment, it claims the total person.   It means, then, that to obey this commandment, one must attach oneself to God with all of everything!  But how can one realize this universal attachment, this love?  We are on the earth and God is in heaven.  We cannot fulfill this love, this attachment, unless we go to Him.  But we must die to this world to go to Him, because only death to this world can release us from the body of flesh to ascend to the Father.

It follows, as the end follows the beginning, that when we defend ourselves from the attacker, we are doing all we can to save the life in the flesh, the psyche-life, and therefore we are also doing all we can to keep from going to the Father!  This is what Jesus demonstrated on the cross, and what he means by commanding us to follow him.  This is the complete explanation of the Lord's refusal to allow his disciples to defend him in Gethsemane.  He was practicing what he preaches by not resisting the enemy so as to go to the Father.  This is also the full explanation of the crucifixion of the Lord. Jesus demonstrated his love for the Father by refusing to save his life on the earth! 

Bottom line: If one does not want to go to the Father who is in heaven, one cannot do so because that means no love for God.  That explains the alternative, which is to be cast into Gehenna!  Heaven or hell -- that is the choice one makes, and it is never more clear than when being threatened with the loss of life by an enemy. 

It does not follow that the Father wants us to cut short our time on earth. He has a work for us to perform here, as he had a work for Jesus.  This is the work of witnessing to this very Word of God that Jesus both uttered and demonstrated in his death on a cross.  He has an hour for each of us, and each must await this hour.  When it comes, we will know (as Jesus knew) that it is time to give the final testimony and it will be a time, not of sorrow, but of joy.  Health issues will dictate the hour for some, and one must carefully evaluate each life saving procedure because there will come a time when, due to the love of the Father, one will not only say "no" to further treatment but will do it because one truly wants to go to the Father to consummate the love He has commanded.  For others, it will be a time to yield to a violent enemy and to love him as a neighbor, witnessing to him through non resistance.  For all who profess to believe in Jesus, it will be a time of final testing, as it was for him.

The issue for every one lies in the tension between the love of life and the love of God!  Jesus has taught it clearly and served as a clear example, commanding all to take up their crosses and follow. 

Turning our attention back to war, it should not be difficult now to understand that the national level is nothing more than the individual level writ large and that going to war is always dictated by the love of life in this world.  It is always and without exception a failure to love God.  It is a failure shared by both the aggressor and the resisting opponents. 

The Love of Freedom?

Consider this as a possible contender for being the single, ultimate cause of war.  The love of freedom is a natural candidate, because we are often exposed to the idea that this love must be greater than the love of life.  National heroes sacrifice their lives for freedom's sake. 

"At the onset of World War II, In his message to Congress proposing lend-lease legislation (Jan. 6, 1941), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated that Four Freedoms should prevail everywhere in the world—freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These were substantially incorporated (Aug., 1941) in the Atlantic Charter. "

For the duration of that war, Americans were constantly reminded of the purpose of the struggle – that people everywhere might be securely in possession of the four freedoms.  The Four Freedoms were on posters, ads, magazine covers, and telephone poles.  Almost anywhere we turned we saw reminders of why the nation was at war -- to secure the Four Freedoms. 

If so many have laid down their lives for freedom, they must have loved freedom more than their lives?  If so, why is the love of freedom not the ultimate single cause of war?

Consider three things.  First, combatants do not go to war intending to lay down their lives.   Each intends, instead, to survive and come home victorious, to enjoy life, embellished with the freedom for which they fought.  They fought for the four freedoms in WWII only because these freedoms contribute to the quality of the life they loved. 

Second, when two opposing combatants meet on the field of battle, all thought of freedom disappears.  The only motive for each, in that moment, is to save his life by killing the enemy.  There is but one motive in each heart – the love of his life.

Third, when a combatant has the choice of losing his freedom, by being taken captive, or his life, it is a rare case that chooses death to avoid captivity.  Patrick Henry, with his famous vow, "Give me liberty or give me death." was the exception in the American Revolutionary War.  These three considerations demonstrate that combatants are motivated by the love of life more than by the love of freedom.

Fourth, a nation sends men into battle to secure freedom for all.  The citizens know that some will not return alive, but they expect the cost in numbers of lives lost to be few by comparison with the total population.  It is a price they are willing to pay, as a nation, to save and enhance the lives of the victors.  But if the war develops such that the cost in terms of lives exceeds a certain expectation, then the nation will cede victory to the enemy rather than pay the price of freedom in terms of the lives of a large portion of the total population.  We saw this in operation at the conclusion of World War II.  The Japanese, faced with the sudden prospect of huge losses of life after nuclear bombs that had suddenly obliterated two whole cities, surrendered and ceased to fight so that the lives of the masses of the population would be spared.  The love of life exceeded the love of freedom!  The victorious American warriors then returned to their homes to be welcomed as heroes and to embrace the freedom enhanced lives for which they had fought. 

We find it to be a rule, then, that warriors do not fight for freedom only, but for lives that are free  When it becomes a case of loss of freedom or loss of life, men choose life with only rare exceptions.  The love of life is the root cause of war. 


Jesus on Freedom

Jesus has something to say about freedom, and hearing him reveals more of the subtle connection between freedom and the love of life.

Jn.8:30 FNT Speaking these [things], many believed in him. 31 So Jesus was saying to the Jews having believed in him: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. ³² And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. 33 They answered him: We are Abraham's seed, and to no one have we ever been enslaved. How do you tell us that: You will become free? ³⁴ Jesus answered them: Truly truly I say to you that everyone doing sin is [a] slave of sin. ³⁵ Now the slave does not dwell in the house[hold] to eternity, the son abides to eternity. ³⁶ So if the son set you free, you will be really free.

These Jews trusted in their sonship to Abraham for their free status.  But Abraham is only a slave in the household of the Father, whereas Jesus is a son.  A household slave might have authority to extend a limited freedom, but not the freedom from sin.  The slave does not dwell in the house forever (vs. 35), so neither does the freedom he extends last forever.  But when the Son makes one free, it is freedom indeed because the Son, dwelling in the house forever, delivers a freedom that endures forever --  you will be really free!

The son delivers this freedom by means of a simple formula: dwell on his words!  From that comes the revelation of Truth -- you will know the truth -- and the truth is what makes one really free.  This is absolute freedom!

It is absolute freedom because it is freedom from the love of life and the fear of death.  Until we are possessed of this freedom, we are enslaved to life in this world and that enslavement compels us to protect that life.  Therefore, until we have this dimension of absolute freedom, we will not be able to face the enemy non violently and with love.  This is why the love of life is the cause of war, and will remain so for the multitudes who are in its bondage. 

Our Leader and Example

Being free from the love of life -- that is, from bondage to life, Jesus did not fear death and wanted only to go to his Father, whom he loved, when his hour in this world had come.  It was in the exercise of this freedom that he was enabled to face his enemies and love them.  And so he prayed for them, saying:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!

The love of life is the absolute cause of war.  Only through Jesus of Nazareth is there deliverance from this love.  Only by following his example is there freedom from life's bondage so that one is free to die or to live.  In this freedom there is the peace that he promises to all who trust and follow him.  Then this profound utterance makes perfect sense:

^{Mt.5:43 FNT} You have heard that it was said: You shall agape-love your neighbor, and you shall hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say to you, be agape-loving your enemies  and be praying for those persecuting you, ⁴⁵ in order that you become sons of your father in [the] heavens.

Conclusion

The love of freedom is a powerful thing, but the love of life in this world is stronger.  The peoples of all nations love freedom because of their belief that by means of freedom they will have happy lives.  What they can never comprehend is that the love of live insures that they will never be free indeed.  Nations go to war for peace and freedom -- freedom such as the four freedoms, not knowing that it is a bondage that drives them back to the battlefield again and again and will never produce either freedom of peace.

Only through the Word of Jesus do we learn the Great Principle by which any individual is able at any time to become free indeed by following the example of Jesus in his life and death.  Any individual who will claim that freedom is also free from war, immediately and permanently!  Then the Peace of Jesus floods the heart and endures for life eternal.

Jn.14:27 FNT Peace I leave you, my peace I give you, not just as the world gives do I give to you. Let your heart not be being troubled, neither let it be being cowardly.