This week was all about a group called CRAVE – Christians Reviving America’s Values (I guess the “E” comes from the fifth letter of value). Crave’s president, Don Swarthout, said, “We have apparently been fighting the war on terror with one hand tied behind our backs.” They recommend increasing our military from 1.4 million to 2.1 million and allow it to fight without restrictions.

Swarthout said,

“Radical Islam has become a formidable force and it is time for us to fight to win. World War III is already here and we must come to that realization.”

I don’t know about you, but this scares me. A lot.

The curriculum asked some good questions.
1. Christian views on war have tended to fall into three broad categories: pacifism (refusal to fight), a just war (qualified participation) and crusade (no holds barred participation, sometimes with the conviction that God is on our side). Which one these seems most biblical to you? Why?
2. When a Christian group calls for fewer restrictions on U.S. troops so that more killing can occur, how does that square with the Christian understanding of the sanctity of human life? (I think this question is pretty straw-man like, but I like where they are going.)
3. Does an issue become a “Christian” concern simply by having Christians care about it?

They suggested looking at Ex. 20:13, 2 Samuel 17:14, Psalm 46:9, Luke 14:31-32, Matthew 5:44, and Proverbs 12:20. They had more questions, but I’m probably bordering on copyright infringement.

Two things:
1. Scary that a “Christian” political activist group is lobbying for more freedom to shoot to kill.
2. This spurs a good discussion. I tend to lean somewhere between pacifism and just war on the continuum. I believe that there are just wars, but I just believe there are only a miniscule amount of wars that would qualify as “just.” Hitler being overthrown in WWII was just. I tend to think of both Iraq wars as unjust. There are other equal if not greater causes in the world today that we are not fighting wars over. So why this? WMDs? Human rights? Oil? Halliburton? Freedom?

Thoughts?