‘Why Should I Care?’

Christians must not forget or ignore the parable of the Good Samaritan:

If there is one theme that arises in my writings so very often it is this: I am continuously coming across Christians who seem to have little mental and moral clarity. They can say some of the most unhelpful and foolish things on all sorts of issues.

During the past few years that has certainly been the case with Israel and the conflict in Gaza. I have written often on these matters. Here I want to focus on a remark someone had made on this. A person I knew on the social media once said this about the situation in the Middle East: “I’m personally not pro the state of Israel myself. I’m not pro any place. All Nations have fallen. The Lord is the only one we can trust.”

Hmm, what should we make of this? Is God the only one we can fully trust? Of course – that goes without saying. Are all nations and all leaders and all people fallen? Of course, once again. But does that mean that the Christian either ignores every conflict found on planet earth, or pretends that one can just live in some “neutral” no-man’s land when it comes to them?

To show where this sort of ‘thinking’ falls down, simply change the conflict around a bit. Instead of the beleaguered nation of Israel completely surrounded by numerous nations that have waged war against it and have sworn to see it wiped off the map, consider a more local situation.

Suppose you and your husband are walking along and you come upon a disturbing scene: a ten-year-old girl is being viciously heckled, spat on, and beaten by three ten-year-old boys. I would think that any person with a brain and a conscience – certainly those who claim to be Christians – would not just keep walking by.

They would not just ignore those thugs and their deplorable attack on that defenceless young girl. They would NOT say to themselves: ‘I’m personally not pro that girl myself. I’m not pro anyone. All people have fallen. The Lord is the only one we can trust.’

That shows how foolish and morally bankrupt such a position really is. Just as we cannot remain “neutral” in regard to international conflicts, we cannot remain neutral to various conflicts much closer to home – even in our own neighbourhood.

Sure, for various reasons we cannot get involved with every conflict we encounter. Suppose the three boys were three quite strong men, maybe even with weapons. While the husband and wife likely could not physically do much by way of intervention – they might even be injured or killed themselves – they should care about this situation and not just quickly walk away.

At the very least they should try to monitor the situation from a safe distance while they immediately call the police, imploring them to come quickly. That is what any thinking and caring person would do. They would not just glibly talk about being on no one’s side, or just saying that God will sort it out.

It is, in other words, the parable of the Good Samaritan all over again. The wrong response is thinking that what is happening to others is none of my business, and that I will simply refuse to get involved. That attitude and action is the very thing Jesus so strongly condemned.

He expected his followers to care for others, and to do what they could to help them. He did NOT expect them to remain callous, indifferent, and focused solely on themselves. Claiming that ‘I am not on anyone’s side – I am just on God’ side’ would just not cut it.

Indeed, consider the words we find just before Jesus told the parable to his listeners. In Luke 10:25-29 we find this:

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

It is at this point that Jesus teaches about what Christian love in action really looks like – thus the parable as found in verses 30-37. And he closes his words on this by reinforcing what he expects of his followers: “‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise’.”

I realise that believers can have differing views on Israel and what it daily faces in the Middle East. But the line that this person had taken about it not really being any of her business is not all that helpful. And I am not singling out this one gal. I have actually heard many other “Christians” saying that they do not give a rip about what is happening elsewhere, including the slaughter of so many Christians in Nigeria of late!

Good grief. I really do not think these so-called believers pass the test given by Jesus in this parable. Indeed, while it is first and foremost delivered to individuals, I really think we can look at it in terms of some of these global, international conflicts as well.

A year ago I did just that, making use of the 1968 volume by Christian ethicist Paul Ramsey, The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility. I quoted what he said about this parable back then, and I find it to be so helpful that I am happy to conclude this piece by sharing that extended quote again:

The western theory of just war originated, not primarily from considerations of abstract or “natural” justice, but from the interior of the ethics of Christian love, or what John XXIII termed “social charity.” It was a work of charity for the Good Samaritan to give help to the man who fell among thieves. But one step more, it may have been a work of charity for the inn-keeper to hold himself ready to receive beaten and wounded men, and for him to conduct his business so that he was solvent enough to extend credit to the Good Samaritan. By another step it would have been a work of charity, and not of justice alone, to maintain and serve in a police patrol on the Jericho road to prevent such things from happening. By yet another step, it might well be work of charity to resist, by force of arms, any external aggression against the social order that maintains the police patrol along the road to Jericho. This means that, where an enforcement of an ordered community is not effectively present, it may be a work of justice and a work of social charity to resort to other available and effective means of resisting injustice: what do you think Jesus would have made the Samaritan do if he had come upon the scene while the robbers were still at their fell work?

 

Now, I am aware that this is no proper way to interpret a parable of Jesus. Yet, these several ways of retelling the parable of the Good Samaritan quickly exhibit something that is generally true about the teachings of Jesus—namely, that by deed and word he showed the individual the meaning of being perfectly ready to have the will of God reign and God’s mercy shed abroad by his life and actions. These versions quickly exhibit how a social ethic emerged from Christian conscience formed by this revelation, and what the early Christians carried with them when they went out into the world to borrow, and subsequently to elevate and refine, Stoic concepts of natural justice.

 

While Jesus taught that a disciple in his own case should turn the other cheek, he did not enjoin that his disciples should lift up the face of another oppressed man for him to be struck again on his other cheek. It is no part of the work of charity to allow this to continue to happen. Instead, it is the work of love and mercy to deliver as many as possible of God’s children from tyranny, and to protect from oppression, if one can, as many of those for whom Christ died as it may be possible to save. When choice must be made between the perpetrator of injustice and the many victims of it, the latter may and should be preferred—even if effectively to do so would require the use of armed force against some evil power. This is what I mean by saying that the justice of sometimes resorting to armed conflict originated in the interior ethics of Christian love.

 

Thus Christian conscience shaped itself for effective action. It allowed even the enemy to be killed only because military personnel and targets stood objectively there at the point where intersect the needs and claims of many more of our fellow men. For their sakes the bearer of hostile force may and should be repressed. Thus, participation in war (and before that, the use of any form of force or resistance) was justified as, in this world to date, an unavoidable necessity if we are not to omit to serve the needs of men in the only concrete way possible, and to maintain a just endurable order in which they may live.

 

There was another side to this coin. The justification of participation in conflict at the same time severely limited war’s conduct. What justified also limited! Since it was for the sake of the innocent and helpless of earth that the Christian first thought himself obliged to make war against an enemy whose objective deeds had to be stopped, since only for their sakes does a Christian justify himself in resisting by any means even an enemy-neighbor, he could never proceed to kill equally innocent people as a means of getting at the enemy’s forces. Thus was twin-born the justification of war and the limitation which surrounded noncombatants with moral immunity from direct attack. Thus was twin-born the distinction between combatant and noncombatant in all Christian reflection about the morality of warfare. This is the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate military objectives. The same considerations which justify killing the bearer of hostile force by the same stroke prohibit noncombatants from ever being directly attacked with deliberate intent.

 

This understanding of the moral economy in the just use of political violence contains, then, two elements: (1) a specific justification for sometimes killing another human being; and (2) severe and specific restrictions upon anyone who is under the hard necessity of doing so….

 

To summarize the theory of just or civilized conduct in war as this was developed within Christendom: love for neighbors threatened by violence, by aggression, or tyranny, provided the grounds for admitting the legitimacy of the use of military force. Love for neighbors at the same time required that such force should be limited. The Christian is commanded to do anything a realistic love commands (and so sometimes he must fight). But this also prohibits him from doing anything for which such love can find no justification (and so he can never approve of unlimited attack upon any human life not closely cooperating in or directly engaged in the force that ought to be repelled). (pp. 142-145)

Christians ARE required to show real, practical love to our neighbours, both in micro and macro settings.

[1959 words]