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John Wesley & just war
By Peter R. McGuire

“We, your bishops, believe that violence in all of its forms and expressions is contrary to God’s purpose for the world. Violence creates fear, desperation, hopelessness and instability.”

So reads a portion of the November 9, 2001, Council of Bishops pastoral letter to the United Methodist Church. This statement by the denomination’s leaders culminates a long tradition of abandoning the teachings and positions of its founder John Wesley, who was, in practice, a just war theologian. Furthermore, a close reading of his writings would not condemn our current war on terror, but would in fact support it as a legitimate function of state.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, pacifists within the United Methodist Church have selectively quoted from Wesley’s works in an attempt to reinterpret him as a pacifist. It is for this reason that one repeatedly sees the following quote from Wesley’s essay “The Doctrine of Original Sin:” “There is a still greater and more undeniable proof that the very foundation of all things, civil and religious, are utterly out of course in the Christian as well as the heathen world. …There is war in the world!” He continued, “War between men! War between Christians! …Now, who can reconcile war, I will not say to religion, but to any degree of reason or common sense?”1

While it is sweet relief to see Wesley referenced in United Methodist publications, rare as it is, to limit his writings on war to that passage alone is disingenuous. In the November/December 2001 issue of Christian Social Action, the above quote was found under the heading, “War and Peace-Building.” If this were all one ever read of Wesley on the issue of war, the impression would be that he were a pacifist. This is not true.

Wesley believed war to be a terrible thing, one of many social ills stemming from the presence of sin in the world. It results from the unchecked ambitions of national leaders, from greed, and from an inability by one nation to respect the differences of another nation.2 Not surprisingly, Wesley believed the outbreak of war a sign of God’s judgment on the sinfulness of humanity, and that we have no one to blame but ourselves. In a July 28, 1775 letter to Thomas Rankin, this is clear, as Wesley wrote that if people did not universally repent of their sinfulness, “God will soon say, ‘Sword, go through that land, and destroy it.’”3

Again, that same year, Wesley wrote in his sermon “National Sins and Miseries”: “But now the plague is begun, and has already made such ravages both in England and America, what can we do, in order that it may be stayed? How shall we stand between the living and the dead? Is there any better way to turn aside the anger of God, than that prescribed by St. James: ‘Purge your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts….’”4

This quote reveals another important aspect of Wesley’s beliefs about war. One’s first response to the possibility of violence should always be to pray for God’s mercy, that he might spare us the miseries of our sinfulness. In a September 1745, letter to the mayor of Newcastle, Wesley wrote: “All I can do for his majesty, whom I honor and love—not less I think than I did my own father—is this, I cry unto God, day by day, in public and in private, to put all his enemies to confusion: And I exhort all that hear me to do the same; and, in their several stations, to exert themselves as loyal subjects; who, so long as they fear God, cannot but honor the king.”5 The cause of the letter was Prince Bonnie Charles’ invasion of England (with France’s support). Wesley’s first response was to pray for God’s deliverance, and then, recognizing that life does not always work to our satisfaction, to offer his support to the king, along with a statement of conviction that all good Christians should do the same.

It is clear, that Wesley, like Augustine and Aquinas before him, was a realist. He idealized peacemakers as “lovers of God and man who utterly detest and abhor all strife and debate,” and “when it is kindled” do their best to keep it from spreading any farther, but understood that most people in the world are not peacemakers.6 As evidenced by the tragedies of September 11, many wish to inflict great harm upon the innocent. St. Augustine wrote in his City of God, that “there never has been nor, is there today, any absence of hostile foreign powers to provoke war.”7

In the tradition of Augustine, Wesley believed it the role of the state to protect the citizenry from the unbridled forces of sin. The duties of the state centered around two primary principles for Wesley, the protection of religious liberty and the preservation of order.8 Because the Americans enjoyed religious freedom in the colonies, Wesley failed to understand the nature of their grievances against the British in the Revolution. He wrote, “After all the vehement cry for liberty, what more liberty can you have? What more religious liberty can you desire, than that which you already enjoy?”9 While this seems naïve in hindsight, Wesley’s primary concern was not taxation without representation, but religious liberty above all else.

England’s emphasis on the rule of law as a means of inhibiting the negative effects of sin was for Wesley, a sign of God’s favor. Wesley believed their use of God’s gift of reason, equipped them to find enlightened leaders who studied the law for the protection of the weak, the propertied, and those who chose to follow Christ.10

With such a high view of English society, it is no surprise that Wesley was quick to offer his services in defense of the homeland. When an invasion seemed imminent by France in the late 1770s, Wesley offered his resources as a national figure to help raise a militia. In 1782, Wesley described his actions to Joseph Benson. He wrote: “Two or three years ago, when the kingdom was in imminent danger, I made an offer to the Government of raising some men. The Secretary of War (by the King’s order) wrote me word, that ‘it was not necessary; but if it ever should be necessary, His Majesty would let me know.’ I never renewed my offer….”11

Wesley’s actions, both in 1745 and again in the late 1770s, indicate a belief in the necessity of violence for a just cause. The nature of his just cause theory is clearly defined in his Notes on the Old Testament. There, in his reflections on the Amorite king’s attack on the Israelites, Wesley wrote that, “By God’s malice, that so Sihon’s malice might be the more evident and inexcusable, and their title to the country more clear in the judgment of all men, as being gotten by a just war into which they were forced in their own defense.”12

Two points are clear. First, when attacked by a foreign power, it is the duty of the state to defend itself. Second, Wesley did not view the normal consequences of war, such as the taking of land, of death, of spoils, as sinful; rather, they are legitimate actions by proper authorities.

In his “Advice to a Soldier,” Wesley’s primary concern was that soldiers accept Christ, not that acts of violence may occur in the course of war. Instead, he condemned cursing, taking the name of God in vain, Sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, revenge, fornication, adultery, and uncleanness.13 This mirrors John the Baptist’s advice to a soldier in Luke 3. He does not tell them to leave the military, but to do their job honestly and be content with their pay. That Luke included this in his gospel is revealing. It tells us that military duties are not a sin, and that anyone, soldier or civilian can receive God’s word.

Wesley in church tradition
To say that Wesley was a believer in the just war tradition requires a definition of just war theory. The just war doctrine has its origins in the writings of Augustine, who said in the City of God that, “A just war, moreover, is justified only by the injustice of an aggressor; and that injustice ought to be a source of grief to any good man, because it is human injustice. It would be deplorable in itself, apart from being a source of conflict.”14

Thomas Aquinas furthered Augustine’s just war theory by creating specific criteria. He argued that for a war to be just, the following circumstances must be considered: 1) Only legitimate authorities can take up the cause; 2) the cause must be just; and 3) the intention must be right.15

The Catechism of the Catholic Church expanded the moral requirements of just war by adding that before engaging in armed conflict, the following criteria be rigorously considered:

1. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

2. All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be practical or ineffective;

3. There must be serious prospects of success;

4. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.16

As Richard P. McBrien points out in his masterly volume Catholicism, the design of these prohibitions was so the Christian community did not engage in warfare and the taking of human life without proper forethought. He writes, “The purpose of just war theory… was not to rationalize violence but to limit its scope and methods.”17

Intellectual honesty requires one to ask the following question though: how does one rationalize the use of force by Christians when the scriptures of the New Testament so clearly criticize its exercise? As a United Methodist, I acknowledge the validity of the pacifist position by my leaders, the Council of Bishops, recognizing that their call for a pacifist response to the murders of civilians on September 11, 2001 is, legitimately, grounded in the teachings and witness of Christ. There is no way to read Matthew 5:38-48 other than as a condemnation of Christian initiated violence.

Furthermore, the early church fathers continued to articulate the moral position found throughout the writings of the New Testament, that is, a consistent condemnation of violence by Christians.18 It was not until the arrival of St. Augustine in the mid-fourth century that a systematic argument for the legitimacy of war existed.

His solution was to delineate the world into two political spheres of morality: personal and social. On the personal level, Augustine advocated complete non-violence, even to the point of personal death, whereas on the social level, violence is acceptable for the preservation of the common good by legitimate authorities working to preserve social order.19

Is the war on terror just?
One cannot separate John Wesley’s beliefs about war from his beliefs about sin and the responsibilities of the state. The reality of the human condition is this: we are sinful creatures. Sin has corrupted our judgment, desires, and motivations, and as a result, a permanent state of peace is impossible.20

Through our use of reason though, Wesley believed God equipped us to create a society grounded in justice and the rule of law. Inherent in a just society is the right to choose Christ, which for Wesley, was the most effective means of combating sin.

Preservation of order, protection of the innocent, and defense of religious freedom are integral rights and duties of the nation state. Throughout his life, Wesley rarely criticized the king or citizenry in their efforts to defend the homeland from aggression or unrest.

On September 11, 2001, a loose confederation of nations and terrorist organizations attacked the United States under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. On that day, one chapter in the course of this nation ended, and another began. Our enemies are no longer alliances of nation states, such as the Axis powers in WWII or the Communist Bloc of the Cold War. They are Islamic radicals who choose not to negotiate with Western culture but instead ameliorate it. They do not believe in religious freedom or the rule of law. They do not believe in women’s rights or the protection of children.

The persons attacking the United States are not bound by the rules of war, but are instead trying to create a sovereignty of fear. The targets and means of Al Qaeda are civilians. We did not seek this new stage of history. They wrought it upon us through the murder of 3,000 civilians.

The task of the Bush administration and the United States government has been difficult. They, along with the rest of the nation, have had to rethink the role of government in an age of terror. This is not easy, as our nation’s enemies live in the shadows of others.

The administration’s response to the attacks of September 11 was to create a new doctrine known popularly as the Bush doctrine. Its premise is this, as the protectors of freedom, we will, as a nation, hunt down and capture all terrorists who intend to harm American citizens. We, along with the nearly 70 nations united with us in the war against terror, will treat any nations or individuals who aid or shelter terrorists as enemies of freedom.

Our United Methodist Church has criticized the administration’s efforts to combat terror. They ask us to try to understand the conditions and cultures that created such evil, to study ways to alleviate the poverty “exploited” by the terrorists. The problem with this is that it assumes a level of wrongdoing by the West so great that the behavior of the terrorists is justified. This cannot be though. After all, if the pacifists claim that no level of violence is worth a violent response, then how can any crime or economic condition be so bad as to justify the violence of September 11?

Another problem is that our Bishops’ letter reveals an ongoing disconnect between modern United Methodism and its founder John Wesley. Not only do our Resolutions and Discipline declare us a pro-abortion denomination, but in the press for a pacifist response, our leaders deny lifelong beliefs and practices of John Wesley.

My Bishop, Charlene Kammerer, stated in a meeting soon after September 11 that the Council of Bishops did not believe the current war on terror met the criteria for a just war. The problem however is that pacifists raise the bar so high, no war is just. In a limited way, they are correct. No war is just, as war always stems from sin. Its execution can only bring about tragedy and heartache, and on any level, one cannot make the consequences of sin palatable. It is impossible to disguise the horror of war by calling it just, but this is not the intent of just war theory.

Its purpose is to limit the scope and methods of war, to insure that the respondents seek the greatest common good.21 To raise the bar for just war so high, is to limit the possibilities of preserving the greatest good. In insinuating that we are somehow to blame for Al Qaeda’s attack, the Council of Bishops and the National Council of Churches have shifted the burden of proof not to the instigators of violence, but to the respondents. The expectation that a nation be as virtuous as the wind driven snow before engaging in conflict is unrealistic and a perversion of Augustine’s intent.

As Paul Ramsey wrote in his book, War and the Christian Conscience, Augustine never believed the primary characteristic of a just war is that one side be completely innocent, because this is impossible. It denies the reality of universal sinfulness.22

For a war to be just, one simply need seek the preservation of the greatest good. Living in a world ruled by terror is not the greatest good. Our intent, as the United States, is not to mete out equivalent atrocities on Al Qaeda. It is to exact justice and retribution in such a way that terrorist organizations no longer have the ability to cause further harm to innocent men, women, and children.

In the case of Iraq, we are enforcing the UN treaties signed by Iraq in 1991. Those treaties allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power, pending his willingness to meet the expectations of the world community and disarm. Iraq has not met those requirements. As Secretary of State Colin Powell argued on February 5, 2003, they continue to hide and produce weapons of mass destruction. “Saddam Hussein has used these horrific weapons on another country and on his own people. In fact, in the history of chemical warfare, no country has had more battlefield experience with chemical weapons since World War I than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” he said. “Second, as with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents.”

Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan.

We also have sources who tell us that since the 1980s, Saddam’s regime has been experimenting on human beings to perfect its biological and chemical weapons. A source said that 1600 death-row prisoners were transferred in 1995 to a special unit for such experiments.

An eyewitness saw prisoners tied down to beds, experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around the victims’ mouths, and autopsies performed to confirm the effects on the prisoners.23

War is not a Christian response to violence. We cannot pretend that it is. It is our responsibility though, as the most powerful nation in the world to work towards freedom and peace around the world. As the world’s leader in freedom and justice, though we are not perfect, we must share our blessings with others. We have for many years, fed, clothed, and provided healthcare for the world. We will continue to do so.

We will continue to live and act as the foremost beacon of republican government, which is to say the form of government most dissimilar to that of Iraq and Al Qaeda. Unlike Iraq and Al Qaeda, it is not the policy of our military to attack innocent civilians. Unlike Iraq and Al Qaeda, we help the victims of our military aggression rebuild. Unlike Iraq and Al Qaeda, we provide medical relief to those in need and feed the surrounding communities where our units are stationed. Unlike Iraq and Al Qaeda, we warn the innocent that they are in danger. The bearers of terror have acted in an unjust way, and we have chosen to not repeat their actions. Though we are sinful, we are still acting in a just cause. We are acting to bring freedom and security to the Middle East and to our own country. We are in a just cause. I believe Wesley would agree.

Peter R. McGuire is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church, and currently serves Center UM Church in Catawba, North Carolina. Rev. McGuire is the author of several articles, the recently released volume The Fruit of the Vine – A History of Methodism in the Southern Piedmont, and was co-editor of the 1999 book Theology From the Belly of the Whale – A Frederick Herzog Reader.

Notes

1.Wesley, John. “Doctrine of Original Sin” from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 9., p. 251.

2     Wesley, “The Doctrine of Original Sin,” 252.

3     Wesley, Letter to Thomas Rankin, # 320 from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 12.,. p. 377.

4     Wesley, “National Sins and Miseries” from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 7., p. 452.

5     Wesley, Letter to the mayor of Newcastle from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1., p. 558.

6     Wesley, “Upon our LORD’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse III” from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 5., p. 370.

7     St. Augustine. City of God. (New York: Image Books, 1958), Bk 19, Ch 7, 446.

8     Weber, 292.

9     Wesley, “A Calm Address to our American Colonies” from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 11., p. 104.

10    Weber, 291. Also see Sermon #70, “The Case of Reason Impartially Considered,” from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 6. p. 377.

11 Wesley, Letter to Joseph Benson, # 484 from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 12., p. 494.

12    Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament, (Numbers 21:21) 525.

13    Wesley, “Advice to a Soldier” from The Complete Works of John Wesley, Vol. 11., p. 230.

14    St. Augustine. City of God. (New York: Image Books), p. 447.

15    Aquinas, Thomas. “Question 40, of War” in Volume 3 of Summa Theologica. pp. 485-486.

16    Article 2309, “Avoiding War” in The Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Missouri: Liguori Publications), p. 555.

17    McBrien, Richard P. Catholicism. (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1981) p. 1036.

18    Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament (USA: Harper San Francisco, 1996), p. 332.

19    McBrien, 1035.

20    Oden, Thomas. John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity. A plain exposition of his teaching on Christians Doctrine. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1994), pp. 170-172.

21    McBrien, 1036.

22    Ramsey, Paul. War and the Christian Conscience. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1961), p. 28.

23    Quotes from Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003. Taken from the Department of State website.



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