Whose Side Are You On?

Reflections on how to think about the wars, conflicts, and battles taking place:

I don’t know about you, but I am the sort of guy who loses sleep over certain things, and gets all rather worked up within. Many things can cause me angst, but one area especially involves the various conflicts and battles raging around the world, and the opinions of some folks on these things.

I find some people – even those calling themselves Christians and conservatives – saying quite silly, bizarre, irrational and frankly non-Christian things about some of these matters. In my view at least, they exhibit a deficiency in some basic mental and moral clarity.

They have taken sides on various matters that I find to be repugnant. Anyone reading my articles, or seeing my social media posts, will know about some of the things that I am referring to here. But I do not want to cover all that ground again.

I just want to give a few brief words of advice – primarily to myself at least. But these words might be of some use to you as well. First, it is a good thing to care about what is going on in our world. Being apathetic and indifferent helps no one. Indeed, it just makes matters worse.

Whether believers do not give a rip about the state of the church, the culture wars, or international conflicts, that is something we must repent of. We really need to care about what God cares about. We need to let God break our hearts over what breaks his heart.

But second, we of course are commanded to cast all our cares upon him, because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We are not to even try to bear all these burdens – we must give them back to God. And we need to be humble enough and realistic enough to know that we cannot save the whole world. Only God can do that.

Sometimes we get so worked up about the issues of the day, and get so weighed down by them, that we can be crushed with the burdens that we are not called to carry. Yes, we must be concerned, and yes, we must ask God what it is that we can do.

But we cannot do everything – we can only do some things. Two famous quotes and a story bear this out:

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” C. S. Lewis

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” Mother Teresa

The story is this:

A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement. She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!” The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, “Well, I made a difference to that one!”

There is a lot of wisdom there. I cannot save Australia or even Melbourne. But I do have a sphere of influence that no one else has, be it my own family, my own neighbours, my own classmates or workmates, and so on. Some of those people I can reach.

Third, in some of these political battles, Christians can and will differ. On some issues I think the right things are pretty clear cut. For example, believers SHOULD support parties, policies and politicians who care about the sanctity of life and the importance of marriage and family. For example, I find it hard to see how Christians could support the Democrats in the US just on these two matters alone.

Fourth, and related to this, I recently had a great Christian friend contact me, feeling discouraged and the like. I replied in part this way: ‘I too can get discouraged here, but I guess I am learning that if I only have a tiny audience and only have a small impact, but if God is behind it, I better keep doing it then! Keeping you in prayer champ. Let us persevere! Our reward will be great in the next life.’

And fifth, I may not like what others believe and say on some things, but I am aware that many of them do not like my views either. They may well be mistaken in what they say, but the truth is, I too may be mistaken. So I need to stay on my knees and seek God as I keep wading into these big debates and arguments. And sometimes I must learn to just stay out of some fights!

On picking sides

As I say, I am not going to rehash all the particular areas of debate and discussion that consume so many folks on the social media, in podcasts, in websites, and so on. But a few more general principles I am trying to keep in mind can be shared here.

I am not a pacifist nor an isolationist. In a fallen world, sometimes warfare is needed to stop tyranny and to protect the weak and vulnerable from oppression. But still, in all the complex situations we face in international relations, I think a passage like this must always be kept in mind:

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15)

And I am reminded of this story as well:

In the heat of the American Civil War, one of President Lincoln’s advisors said he was grateful that God was on the side of the Union. Lincoln replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

All that is good advice indeed. And of course to say things like this does NOT mean I am pushing some silly and senseless moral equivalence, wherein I think all sides are equal. Sorry, but not all cultures are equal. Not all types of government are equal. Not all leaders are equal. Some are better than others. Some are worse than others.

Sadly I am seeing too many ‘conservatives’ and ‘Christians’ of late going down this dangerous road – so much so, that they are actually implying, if not saying, that there were no good guys or bad guys in WWII. They seem to think the Allies were just as evil as the Nazis. Sorry, I have no time for that sort of nonsense. Nor do I think for one moment that Israel is just as bad as Hamas.

So even in a fallen world, we can still argue that some causes are good and just, and some others are not. But there is always some mix of good and evil in every state, every politician, every policy, and every person. Even in a marriage breakdown, there seldom is just one guilty party.

As Aleksander Solzhenitsyn once put it, “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” The Christian must always begin there.

Moreover, we simply do not know everything about all the wars and battles that are happening right now. Plenty of self-appointed “experts” like to pontificate on these things. Some might have more insight and knowledge than others. But sometimes a bit of humility and willingness to admit we are not omniscient can go a long way.

Nor can we claim with absolute certainty that one side is on the side of angels, and one side is on the side of devils. As I recently said about one such conflict:

I see no reason to call Zelensky the Antichrist and Putin the Messiah.
I see no reason to call Putin the Antichrist and Zelensky the Messiah.
I see no reason to call out Trump just now. We need to see what happens here. If the war comes to an end and some sort of justice ensues, that will be a good start. In a fallen world we cannot expect a whole lot more.

There is NO saviour or messiah on the scene – in this conflict or any other. At the end of the day Zelensky will not save us. Putin will not save us. Trump will not save us. Only Jesus can do that. Yet I know of so many Christians who seem to think these and other figures are either perfect and must be defended to the death, or are so bad that there is no redemption possible for them.

I am beginning to see that while I must keep writing and posting on these things, and try to bring some clarity to such issues, a main goal I must have is to run with the sorts of thing that Joshua and Lincoln had learned. What really matters at the end of the day is if I am on God’s side. I dare not be so arrogant and presumptuous to think that I always am.

Afterword

It might seem that I am about to undo all that I have said above in saying the following – but hopefully not! I am not an expert on international relations and the like. But I find that some folks are, and they are worth listening to. For example, I have long felt that Victor Davis Hanson consistently offers solid and succinct commentary on the issues of the day.

As but one example: just yesterday he posted an 8-minute video that speaks about Trump, Putin, Zelensky, NATO, China, Russia and the big picture. It has already been viewed nearly one and a half million times. It is well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVG4YWw3Fqo

Does he have all the answers on this? No. Does he have all the truth? No. But he does have some important political insights and historical understanding that can help us all as we try to make sense of this conflict – one that has lasted far too long already.

I will keep commenting on politics and international relations. They ARE important matters. But I can claim no divine inspiration for my viewpoints. There is only one person who has that perfect knowledge, insight and understanding. And I am not him.

[1872 words]