Article by P.K.Odendaal
Well, I take my hat off for Leo Tolstoi, who was not afraid to tell the Russian rulers what we are afraid to tell our rulers.
Just a few of his statements to bring us back to earth and to our mission. He gets the name of the words from a citation of Jesus Christ. Tolstoi knew very well that war was not about who was right, but rather about who was left.All over Russia, from the Palace to the remotest village, the pastors of Churches, calling themselves Christians, appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one's enemies - to the God of Love Himself - to help the work of the devil to further the slaughter of men.
Let everyman interrupt the work he has begun and ask himself : Who am I? From whence have I appeared, and in what consists my destiny? And having answered these questions, according to the answer decide whether that which thou doest is in conformity with thy destiny.
This unfortunate and entangled young man (The Tsar) ... confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he call his own for murder in defence of lands which with yet less right he calls his own.
... but how can a believing Christian ... take a gun, or stand by a cannon, and aim at a crowd of his fellow-men, desiring to kill as many of them as possible ?
If there be a God, He will not ask me whether I retained Chi-nam-po with its timber shores, or Port Arthur or even that conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire (from being taken by the Japannese in that war), which He did not confide to my care, but He will ask me what I have done with that life He put at my disposal; - did I use it for the purpose for which it was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling which it was intrsusted to me? Have I fulfilled His law?
Therefore, for a religious man there is no question as to whether many or few men act as he does (resisting war and maybe getting shot for not participating in it), or of what may happen to him if he does that which he should do. He knows that besides life and death nothing can happen, and that life and death are in the hands of God whom he obeys.
I cannot act otherwise than as God demands of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither directly nor indirectly, nor by helping, nor by inciting to it, participate in war; I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not.
I had some comments on this from people who do not agree. These were not my own words, but abstracts from the article by Leo Tolstoi with which I wholeheartedly agree.
ReplyDeleteThe gist of the comments were that God encouraged His people in the Old testament to make war against their enemies (and that He is the same today as He was then) and further that war is such an integral part of our life and our world.
Unfortunately I could not publish the whole text which would have given it more coherence.
One needs to reflect that God stayed the same, but that His law changed.
At first there was no law, but the transgressions of man forced Him to enact at least some equitable law such as 'an eye for an eye'. This was not a law of revenge, but merely a reigning in of man's natural inclination to kill the whole family of a man who took your eye - and the new law meant - NO - ONLY ONE EYE FOR AN EYE.
However, with the New Testament all that has changed as we now have to turn the other cheek and pray for our enemies.
The latter is not compatible with war in any form, and it is clear that our wars emanate form our desires and lusts as in
Jas.4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? v:2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. v:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. v:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.