God. Real. Right.

In the Fall 2008 CTR, Stanley Hauerwas defends his pacifism. The following is simply a section-by-section and sometimes paragraph-by-paragraph response as I read the work. His sections are on the idealism of realism, the nation (or war) as church, and pacifism as realism.

“The Idealism of Realism”
Paragraph 1: Hauerwas claims that critics of pacifism rely on realism to make their claim. But actually, what’s wrong with pacifism is not that it is not realistic, even though I agree that it is not. The fact that something doesn’t work means only that it doesn’t work, not that it is wrong. What’s wrong with Pacifism is its unconscionably egoistic and myopic theory. In other words, the practice of pacifism is wrong because it effectively embodies the morally irresponsible and testimony-destroying theory of pacifism. (The blog post linked from this sentence makes the point that legitimate opposition to pacifism does not depend on utility, or for Hauerwas, realism.)
Paragraph 2: Hauerwas claims the American view of war as sacrifice makes it culturally infeasible to question war’s moral value in American culture. But the reason Americans view war as sacrifice, and ascribe a morally positive value to that sacrifice, is because of their Christian (Puritan, to be particular) heritage. It may be confusion which leads Americans to demonstrate the same kind of reverence for their nationality which they have for their spiritual heritage. But it is not confusion which attaches an act of righteous violence to spiritual redemption in Christ. (The blog post linked from this sentence makes this point about the nature of Christ’s redemptive act.) Of course, this question is addressed under the heading below: “Upon the Altar of the Nation.”
Paragraphs 3-8: Hauerwas demonstrates that Niebuhr as understood by Ramsey is a poor interpreter of Luther who is himself an exaggerated interpreter of Augustine. Fair enough. But the only thing that matters in all of that interpretation is finally the claim that Augustine’s and Luther’s toleration of a necessary evil in no way allows for Niebuhr’s nation-state-dependent prescription of just war. Hauerwas mentions but then glances past the fact that Niebuhr’s argument depends on an understanding of justification as practically incomplete in the world. Indeed, his quotation of Niebuhr, that “pacifists are captured by a perfectionism that is more ‘deeply engulfed in illusion about human nature than the Catholic pretensions, against which the Reformation was a protest’” is never satisfactorily addressed. And no wonder. It is, after all, the crux of the issue that divides pacifists from those who believe there is violence which is virtuous in itself. To be clear: men are supposed to follow God’s lead. Where they fail, they sin. Men should love because God loves. Where they do not love as He requires, they sin. Similarly, men ought to mete out justice as God metes out justice. Where they fail to do so according to His requirement, they sin.
Christians have no less moral obligation to reflect God’s character in this world. Indeed, Christians are responsible for living out God’s character in the world, as everyone else is, and they have a tool for doing it which normal people do not have—an indwelling Holy Spirit. Where God loves and Christians are capable of demonstrating it, they love. Where God is righteously indignant and Christians are capable of demonstrating that indignation, they do. And where God has condemned evil with a pronouncement of judgment against it and Christians are authorized and capable of carrying it out, they do—or at least they ought to. Only with that understanding does the Christian testimony avoid the hypocrisy of expecting from others what they are not themselves willing to give. The last sentence has nothing to do with utility. It is a purely Kantian claim for those who require enlightenment justification; conformity to the Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12 for those satisfied by scripture.
Paragraphs 9-15: Hauerwas demonstrates the hypocrisy of realistic or utilitarian justifications for war which end up themselves dependent on fantastic expectations of idealism within its executors. His complaint about those ideologies is fair. But war as a demonstration of God’s ultimate act of violence in judgment is no more impugned by its imperfect expression in the world today than is human love as an expression of God’s love impugned by its imperfection here and now. Practice on neither side defines truth. Hauerwas is correct to claim that contemporary just war theory (I’ll add, especially with its jus post bellum nation-building confusion) where it appeals to realism for its legitimacy then to idealism for its application is maddeningly misdirected. But he is wrong to think that the real problem with pacifism is realism. It may be prominent in argument, but it is in no way pacifism’s real problem.

“Upon the Altar of the Nation”
Paragraph 1: Hauerwas is simply wrong for relying on Stout and concluding that there was no religious loyalty to a nation-state America sufficient to justify the sacrifice of blood on behalf of the nation-state rather then the individual territories or states themselves. Frost recognizes the Revolutionary War as the commitment of men to the nation-state and its geographically manifest destiny in his poem, “The Gift Outright.” And Frost is not speaking naively. Representatives from colonies/states opposed to the war swore their allegiance to death on behalf of a new nation, not simply a loose federation. But that issue is beside the main point for Hauerwas or for me. In fact, it only really strengthens the background of Hauerwas’ claim. But the background is not the same as the claim itself.
Paragraphs 2-10: Hauerwas offers a one-sided critique of America as religion, using the Civil War as an unnecessarily narrow model of that sacralization. It is not one-sided because America ought to be considered a church or a war ought to be regarded with sacred introspection, but because not everything which is viewed with awe or analogized to God’s holiness is a substitute for Him or His sacred place in life. To view a mountain with wonder is not the same as worshiping the mountain. And to respect and even revere the sacrifice of men on behalf of a noble cause is not in itself idolatry.
Here is Hauerwas’ basic error. Governments are moral agents. They can be bad at it. And they can be good at it. But they are moral agents nonetheless. To suggest that because both sides of the Civil War used religious language neither side was waging a war which could be justified by a moral imperative is logically non-sequitur and morally equivalent to abject relativism, while at the same time rhetorically deceptive and spiritually irresponsible:

• logically non-sequitur and morally equivalent to abject relativism: that opposing sides claim to be right in no way implies that neither is right;
• rhetorically deceptive and spiritually irresponsible: the fact that too many people have made the fallacious claim that America is God’s nation in the world does not even address the question of whether God has given authority to governments for the execution of judgment, nor of whether it is sheer hypocrisy to believe that there is a higher ethical standard for normal people (those who do not follow Jesus) than there is for believers (since God’s expression of judgment in the world whether direct or through governments is a revelation of His righteous character and therefore of what is ethical.)

Indeed, Hauerwas’ argument is disappointingly similar to much secular, academic literature disparaging American idealism as necessarily flawed by its inability to demonstrate superiority over any other culture’s idealism, given that there is no court of arbitration in which that superiority could be established. Now that fact does not make Hauerwas wrong. But it does as much damage to his view as his does to American idealism, and with the same technique.
But the missed point is profound. Granted, Americans can fallaciously justify their wars based on a divinely manifest unique destiny, as for Israel. But Americans can also justify their wars based on God’s institution of violence through government as a means of punishing wrongs. That the wrongs will be poorly defined and the punishments administered unjustly has no bearing on the fact that God has decided that it is important to have someone in this world represent His coming violence against what is really wrong. It could be no more wrong for believers to participate in that revelation of His appropriate violence than for them to demonstrate stewardship through environmental responsibility.

“Pacifism as Realism”
Paragraph 1: Hauerwas reiterates his criticism of current just war theory as inherently flawed by its ultimate appeal to unrealizable ideals. I agree with him.
Paragraph 2: Hauerwas (not-so) subtly asserts that America’s infatuation with war is manipulated by more skeptical leaders or at least by a more pragmatic need to justify war in a self-serving freedom-loving land. He may be right about some skeptics. But he is wrong about others who are believers, secular or otherwise, in justice—justice, which is, after all, the virtue toward which righteous violence (that enacted by a proper authority even though its enactment may be catastrophically blemished) is directed by God.
Paragraph 3: Hauerwas inanely asserts that language analogizing redemptive sacrifice with acts of war underestimates the accomplishment of the sacrifice of Christ, which he claims makes other sacrifices (of war, in this case) unnecessary. Here are three critical and simple mistakes. First, using the language of sacrificial redemption about war undermines Christ’s sacrificial act no more than Paul using the language of sacrifice about himself, Timothy, or Epaphroditus in Philippians 2 undermines Christ’s sacrificial act. For that matter, Jesus’ own words about followers dying to self and taking up their cross would be dangerous language minimizing the finality of His own sacrifice if Hauerwas’ reasoning were correct on this point. But second, he himself argues against what is too simplistic a view of government violence. A government which believes it is bringing about eternal world redemption through its acts of war is stupidly wrong. But even that government is a demonstration of God’s impending, final, and yet-unrealized violent judgment against evil in the world. The government may have the wrong values, and may judge the wrong object, but it is still a demonstrator of God’s moral virtue in its execution of violence. Romans 13 has no qualification excluding the very government which would execute its human author. So as it turns out, Hauerwas has too worldly a view of the kingdom of God, thinking that only in a knee-jerk reaction to government error (a pacifist response to government excess and ineptitude) can Christians demonstrate their allegiance to a different kingdom. But a kingdom so defined is too similar to the kingdom being opposed. No, Christians are able to be solely allegiant to God’s kingdom and faithful witnesses of His righteousness, including its demonstration through governmental violence, precisely because the kingdom of heaven is persistently impinging on this world but never actually confused with it. Christians have already been transformed by Christ. Who better then to demonstrate, assist in, and rectify the always flawed but always still significant ethical practices of cultures and nations whose God-given conscience stands in both their self-condemnation and their self-commendation? Third, as mentioned above, the idea that Jesus’ suffering of violence somehow proscribes future violence for Christians is misguided, as this previous post argues.
Paragraph 4, the conclusion: Hauerwas claims that war is inevitably regarded as sacred, and therefore is a substitute for the true church. That claim is a sad stretch, and the fact that a man as intelligent as Stanley Hauerwas would embrace it is evidence of his commitment to pacifism regardless of its doctrinal veracity (or lack thereof). He treats war as if it happens to be first on a list of a variety of moral issues. But it is not. War is a context in which many moral issues converge: authority, sacrifice, altruism, egoism, courage, even duty and utility. Claiming that Christian realism requires the disavowal of war because of its moral significance is like saying the church must cease to oppose abortion because it cheapens the regard for eternal life. Christians can speak in the execution of judgment and in its forbearance through mercy, just as God does (hence passages like 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 2 inside the church). But suppose war is a moral issue unto itself, as Hauerwas assumes. Recognizing the significance of a soldier’s courage and the value of the freedom preserved by it using language reminiscent of Christ is honoring both to the soldier and to the greater model, Christ. It is simply wrong to think that every analogy of language results in the confusion of the analog with the thing analogized. War is not church, and where someone thinks it is, he needs correction. But that correction does not require throwing out the baby. The church should not be confused by a morally detached and pragmatic attempt to oppose real human crises (wars and the things that bring them about) with the pretense that God has relieved His people from the responsibility to reflect his character faithfully here and now.